Fools Rush In Where Business Angels Fear To Tread

[pagetheoracle]

Could the end of Western fiscal life be down to pioneers who take risks being replaced by settlers who don't ("Is it safe?" Marathon Man).

 

Is financial evolution reflected in refinement of risk taking, from crude, generalized chance taking at the start of some business venture, to one where only minor risk taking, takes over (The odds are always in favour of the house or in this case, bank / lender).

 

I remember in The UK Freddie Laker setting up a cheap airline company that British Airways, who had the monopoly in the industry, finally broke and removed as a threat but this opened the gateway to Ryan Air, Easy Jet and Virgin Atlantic to come in and do the same.  This is my best example of this kind of pioneering and how it is taken down by the bigger companies, who want a big profit and why The UK has a monopolies commission, to allow the growth of small businesses.  America used to be more free in this respect but I suspect that China is now taking over the market as it has less restrictions and more room for development (Cheaper market as low labour costs - no union hold / safety standards for its workers).  It happened to Rome and other empires, and I see it happening here - crushing restrictions stopping growth as a natural result of economic and social development.

 

In my own life I have ideas that have never got off the ground for this reason and I dare say others will have their own experiences of this problem.

[Buffy]

If there's any problem with government regulation it's solely due to the fact that the big companies have more friends in government to write regulations that help build and maintain monopolies and give them free rein to crush their competition.

 

Over-regulation in the US is a myth: we have gone through 30 years now of deregulation, and it's resulted mostly in most major markets being totally dominated by about three entrants who have no interest in rocking the boat to actually compete with their so-called "rivals." There has not been any major anti-trust action in the US since the breakup of the now almost entirely reconstituted AT&T which now is subject to a small fraction of the regulations it was before the break up. And communications costs have grown much faster than inflation in spite of all the economies of scale that were supposed to keep costs down, decimating the unions in the industry to lower average wages and greatly reduce the number of employees, and now produces the worst service in the first world.

 

I work for a company with a great product that saves our customers lots of money, but because it is not "designed to compete with Google" or have something to do with "social media" the venture capital folks won't give us a dime.

 

It's not really anything that government does, it's all about whether the people who say they're risk takers really are, or whether they'd rather take safe bets and use their influence to rig the system to keep them on top.

 

Disruption of markets is hard, but it can be done. Just don't expect "the system" to ever help you, you have to climb mountains to get there, and yes, sometimes a Laker has to be burned at the stake before you can get a Branson who succeeds.

 

 

The trouble with predators is that they don't know who's the prey - until he's dead, :phones:

Buffy

[pagetheoracle]

Yes, I'm still crying over my ideas too but it won't make me bitter...much.