Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Again I Say 30% of Americans are Stupid

Looks like my assertion that 30% of Americans are stupid has been proven yet again by Rasmussen:

Voters don’t care much for government regulation of the economy and think it has a bigger negative impact on small business.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 70% of Likely U.S. Voters believe government regulations hurt small businesses more than big businesses. Just 13% think big businesses are hurt more. Sixteen percent (16%) are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here).

Sixty-three percent (63%) think big businesses take advantage of the political process to hurt smaller competitors. Only 15% disagree, although 22% more are not sure.

When I was in college, my roommate pointed out to me how other nations, especially the Western European ones, had even more strict laws and regulations regarding intellectual property than the United States despite the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  This led me to conclude that the more Socialist a nation is, the more likely a big corporation is to take control of that country.

The dirty secret of this supposed capitalist society we live in is that big corporations love big government regulations.  They do not mind spending literally millions of dollars on lobbyists and bribes (see campaign contributions) in order to gain an edge in the market.  Unlike most voters and politicians, they remember their origins as a company because most large corporations were created in a single generation by a brilliant business person.  Usually, that business started out as a small shop somewhere in some no-name location and expanded from there.

But they also recognize that there are constant threats to their reign in the markets by small business.  The invention of the automobile spelled the doom of passenger trains in the transportation market.  The placement of McDonald’s restaurants on highways pushed other places like White Castle into obscurity, despite the latter actually coming out of the Great Depression stronger.  The Wal-Mart chain was started small and expanded, beating existing department stores by its revolutionary system of distribution which allowed for lower prices.

Speaking of Wal-Mart, back in 2007, shortly after the Democrats took Congress back, the Wal-Mart CEO came out in support of raising the minimum wage.  Now why would Wal-Mart, popularly alleged to have not paid its employees anything above minimum wage, support such a regulation?  Out of the goodness of his heart?  Don’t make me laugh.  Seeing as how the stereotypical corporate CEO is a greedy, selfish profiteer, how come no progressive on the Left viewed this statement as the least bit suspicious?

The reason that he said that was because Wal-Mart can pay for the increase in labor expenses while smaller businesses cannot.  Minimum wage laws serve only to raise unemployment (if you think that is a bad thing, I could go either way on that indicator) and stifle the growth of small businesses.  In effect, the Wal-Mart CEO was looking to prevent some new hotshot with even better ideas from killing his own golden goose.

Now it appears that 70% of Americans now also believe that business regulations have a bigger negative impact on small businesses.  I would add to that assertion that big businesses actually benefit from government regulations rather than are restricted by them.  Even when there are restrictions placed by government leaders and bureaucrats, they still can get away with them by paying off the inspectors, as was the case with BP (OK, I do not know that for certain, but BP did violate more safety regulations than any other oil company and somehow this was not picked up by the regulators).

Given that 30% still believe that big government hurts big business, or are unsure on that matter, it continues to prove my assertion that at least 30% of Americans are generally ignorant of the practical nature of how things are when it comes to government and its relation to the economy.  And while I am  certain that the other 70% probably a variety of ideas on how to fix this, one thing is certain: this does not bode well for the bureaucrats who believed that there was job security in working for the government.