I can certainly understand how someone could see a problem, such as recent immigrants having trouble getting started, and want to fix it with a government program. Especially when they can see that those programs genuinely do some good.
However, from your own example I will give voice to the voiceless:
That's 83% of resources going to small, nontraditional businesses and over 88% going to women and minority businesses, some which would not be in business if it weren't for the benefits they could access.
If these businesses only exist because of government money, what about their competitors who are not in business? Were they viable businesses that went bust because they were not able to qualify for "women and minority" status?
When I worked in industry, the guy who ran the company that I worked for made his wife President and his title was "Head Engineer". In practice, I know she spent lots of time doing things like picking out carpeting for the expanded office. Why? So the company could say that it had a woman as President and get more cookies from the federal government. It was a very good company that made a solid product, but the government programs gave them an incentive to pull "who's the President" type shenanigans.
It's a slippery slope from shenanigans to shenanigans and problems like these seem contribute to the corporate culture that produces Enron style fiascos.
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This isn't to say that I think it's bad to help out small businesses: Muhammad Yunis's Banker to the Poor convinced me that it's both possible and desirable.
However, like Yunis, I think that any government program will in the end do more harm than good.
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Date: 2008-10-16 10:06 pm (UTC)However, from your own example I will give voice to the voiceless:
That's 83% of resources going to small, nontraditional businesses and over 88% going to women and minority businesses, some which would not be in business if it weren't for the benefits they could access.
If these businesses only exist because of government money, what about their competitors who are not in business? Were they viable businesses that went bust because they were not able to qualify for "women and minority" status?
When I worked in industry, the guy who ran the company that I worked for made his wife President and his title was "Head Engineer". In practice, I know she spent lots of time doing things like picking out carpeting for the expanded office. Why? So the company could say that it had a woman as President and get more cookies from the federal government. It was a very good company that made a solid product, but the government programs gave them an incentive to pull "who's the President" type shenanigans.
It's a slippery slope from shenanigans to shenanigans and problems like these seem contribute to the corporate culture that produces Enron style fiascos.
---
This isn't to say that I think it's bad to help out small businesses: Muhammad Yunis's Banker to the Poor convinced me that it's both possible and desirable.
However, like Yunis, I think that any government program will in the end do more harm than good.