If universal health care were really that important to entrepreneurship, why isn't Silicon Valley in Europe?
Do you have any data to back up your assertion ?
According to http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/small-business-20... "By every measure of small-business employment, the United States has among the world’s smallest small-business sectors (as a proportion of total national employment)."
Still the authors of that study do appear to have an ideological axe to grind. I would be interested in researching the matter further from a less ideological source. I'm curious why we think of the United States having such a large share of the world's startups and invention if it isn't true.
One interpretation of the data presented here is that self-employment and small-business employment may be a less important indicator of entrepreneurship than we have long thought. Another reading of the data, however, is that the United States has something to learn from the experience of other advanced economies, which appear to have had much better luck promoting and sustaining small-business employment.
The self-employment rates in Figure 1 are particularly high in Greece (35.9 percent), Italy (26.4), Portugal (24.2), and several other countries where agriculture is still an important part of national employment.
For what it's worth it seems to me like the abstract ideological debate between state and private control tends to be vibrant in The States and therefore breeds more "ideological" positions.
A convenience store owner in Germany whose father and grandfather owned and worked in the same store can't be put into the same category as a 25 year old who quits his job to found a groundbreaking internet technology company.
Both count as small businesses. One is changing the world, the other one is not.
from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/entrepreneur
I'd said that the founder of any small business is definitely an entrepreneur.
I wonder why does the US have such a high reputation in entrepreneurship. Is it because we have a higher concentration of high tech start-ups (unverified), which generate more buzz in the media?
As I see it, the US spends a fortune on health, and gets a dodgy system. It's not quite the caricature Michael Moore paints, but he doesn't seem too far from the mark. Whether that is funded by companies (health benefits for employees - more red tape than in countries with universal health) or by individuals (which lowers individual risk tolerance) is immaterial. Public health works better than private health, according to all the numbers I've seen.
Too true. One of my favorite infographics regarding health care: http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/cliff-kuang/design-innovatio...
We see doctors less, spend more than twice the average anyway, and have below average life expectancy.
And we have a very different population. Obesity is only the most obvious example. And no, healthcare doesn't address obesity, even if your argument requires that it do so.
And we spend more on end-of-life. Unless govt death panels are going to be more frugal than private ones, that cost-differential will persist.
And we pay for a huge fraction of the world's drug development. Are you planning to cut back there?
Well over $150B of existing medicare/medicaid spending is fraudulent, which is significantly more than the "excess overhead and profits" of private insurance. Will that go up or down?
* Because it's much harder to fire employees in EU, which makes employing people much riskier.
* Because the rules for employing people (working hours, vacation, etc) are much stricter.
* Because entrepreneurship is stigmatized in EU.
* Because insolvency in the EU involves years of trusteeship and significant legal hardship.
* Because selling in the EU and elsewhere abroad involves more border crossings and different regulatory regimes.
* Because taxes in EU are spectacularly high, not just for the top earners but all the way down through the middle class.
You could fix all of these today (bk reform is apparently a major theme in Europe) and it might still be a generation before the region becomes competitive with the US.
I remember a joke I heard a few years ago about how by law German offices must have windows and German garages must not have windows, so you can't ever start a company in your garage.
And since when does our government really get involved with "financing private ventures"? Banks aren't paying out for insurance (and will probably pay slightly less under this reform), and most VC's will have to pay about 2% more in tax. So maybe 5-10 useless web startups a year won't happen, but I don't think it's going to slow down small businesses at all. Many of the people I know who would start one or join an existing one can't because of health insurance.
We are generally small business friendly (I've had one, my parents have 2 going strong) but I don't expect we are particularly better, in reality, than anyone else :)
That doesn't exist in Europe. Firstly, there is an economic disadvantage to studying in a different EU country, and most importantly there are cultural and language barriers. Instead of having a concentration of the smartest engineers studying within a couple of colleges, you have smart people being distributed rather sparsely over quite a large area.
i currently work for hp, so i know this story and would like to share it (despite being a bit off-topic): http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/1998/julaug/arti...
Because universal health care is not a sufficient condition for entrepreneurship, only an important one. I might go so far as to call it semi-necessary, but obviously if you have a spouse with corporate health care (as I do), or are less risk averse, you can make do without universal health care.
Silicon Valley has other things which beat the pants-off of Europe in terms of encouraging entrepreneurship (fewer roadblocks, easier access to capital, easy access to large markets, a culture where entrepreneurs are looked up to)
Because what makes Silicon Valley is a whole mix of factors? After all, why can't other US states copy Silicon Valley, even though a number of them dearly want to?
This counts for any level of schooling, including University. The number of IT spinoffs from my alma mater in the past decade can be counted on one hand.
Lots of people with health problems and families can't work for startups at the moment who will be able to once this happens. That's why this matters.
I'd say the business regulations are the huge difference between those countries and the US as far as silicon valley goes.
