Suzanimal
04-27-2014, 05:57 AM
Imagine you’re out of work. But you’ve got capital in your talents, your home, and your family and friends. You might try to start a microbusiness at home to earn a little extra income and make ends meet. That is, unless you live in certain U.S. states.
Making Dough at Home
A few years ago, Mark Stambler started a business in his California home that became a flashpoint in a legalization battle. That might sound like he had a few marijuana plants growing in the closet. Actually, he was making and selling bread. Yes, bread. He did it so well, in fact, that Stambler was featured in the May 31, 2011, issue of the Los Angeles Times.
The next day, Department of Public Health authorities shut him down. There was no customer complaint; Stambler was simply “not in compliance” with regulations.
Stambler decided to take food off the black market. He helped to draft the California Homemade Food Act, which went into effect in January 2013. According to a January Forbes headline, it created over a thousand local businesses.
The episode raises a host of questions. Should home businesses be regulated? Should they stay in the black market? It’s hard to say. But one impact of the Homemade Food Act is clear: When government loosens control of commerce, businesses and jobs get created. The Forbes articles explained, “In Los Angeles County, there are [now] almost 270 cottage food businesses. Statewide, over 1,200 homemade food businesses have been approved.”
Continue reading here...
http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/let-a-thousand-home-businesses-bloom
From the comments...
Storm • 12 days ago
Two decades ago I began my own business, almost by accident. I just started doing the work that people I knew wanted done. I had the knowledge and experience in the construction trades from working in them to put myself through college. Since I went for a degree that is not a lucrative one, when I finished school, I fell back on those useful skills.
Since then, I've offered advice to other people who have either expressed an interest in their own business, or were in a situation in which they needed an income or at least additional income. Almost always the barriers to entry, created exclusively by the state at this level, scared these individuals away from starting their own business and filling a public need.
With my first business I tried to follow all of the regulations, restrictions, and other rules in place. I had to hire not one, but three different people to wade through and discover what the state claimed I must do in order to simply show new families around town and put together information useful to them. Even at that, two years after I closed that business (dotcom bust killed it) I received a letter from some obscure government agency claiming that I owed them some sort of regulatory fees that as far as I could tell, did not even apply to service based industries.
My experiences in business have led me to make a comparison that often sets people back, particularly the more jingoistic individuals: You can create a home based business in China infinitely easier than you can in the US. In China if you want to say sell bottled water to tourists (or anyone) the path as I know it from talking to the people doing just this is:
1. Buy bottled water.
2. Sell bottled water.
3. Profit
Same goes for beer btw. Given how difficult it is to merely sell sealed bottled water in the US, imagine trying to sell beer on the streets!
Thank you for the great article reminding us that this is not the land of opportunity.
Making Dough at Home
A few years ago, Mark Stambler started a business in his California home that became a flashpoint in a legalization battle. That might sound like he had a few marijuana plants growing in the closet. Actually, he was making and selling bread. Yes, bread. He did it so well, in fact, that Stambler was featured in the May 31, 2011, issue of the Los Angeles Times.
The next day, Department of Public Health authorities shut him down. There was no customer complaint; Stambler was simply “not in compliance” with regulations.
Stambler decided to take food off the black market. He helped to draft the California Homemade Food Act, which went into effect in January 2013. According to a January Forbes headline, it created over a thousand local businesses.
The episode raises a host of questions. Should home businesses be regulated? Should they stay in the black market? It’s hard to say. But one impact of the Homemade Food Act is clear: When government loosens control of commerce, businesses and jobs get created. The Forbes articles explained, “In Los Angeles County, there are [now] almost 270 cottage food businesses. Statewide, over 1,200 homemade food businesses have been approved.”
Continue reading here...
http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/let-a-thousand-home-businesses-bloom
From the comments...
Storm • 12 days ago
Two decades ago I began my own business, almost by accident. I just started doing the work that people I knew wanted done. I had the knowledge and experience in the construction trades from working in them to put myself through college. Since I went for a degree that is not a lucrative one, when I finished school, I fell back on those useful skills.
Since then, I've offered advice to other people who have either expressed an interest in their own business, or were in a situation in which they needed an income or at least additional income. Almost always the barriers to entry, created exclusively by the state at this level, scared these individuals away from starting their own business and filling a public need.
With my first business I tried to follow all of the regulations, restrictions, and other rules in place. I had to hire not one, but three different people to wade through and discover what the state claimed I must do in order to simply show new families around town and put together information useful to them. Even at that, two years after I closed that business (dotcom bust killed it) I received a letter from some obscure government agency claiming that I owed them some sort of regulatory fees that as far as I could tell, did not even apply to service based industries.
My experiences in business have led me to make a comparison that often sets people back, particularly the more jingoistic individuals: You can create a home based business in China infinitely easier than you can in the US. In China if you want to say sell bottled water to tourists (or anyone) the path as I know it from talking to the people doing just this is:
1. Buy bottled water.
2. Sell bottled water.
3. Profit
Same goes for beer btw. Given how difficult it is to merely sell sealed bottled water in the US, imagine trying to sell beer on the streets!
Thank you for the great article reminding us that this is not the land of opportunity.