Entrepreneurs under attack ~ By John Stossel

Note to readers of this column: This has been going on for a very long time. This isn't anything that just started recently, or with the Obama administration. Local and state governments have been regulating the heck out of businesses for a long, long time. However, when a government regulation has gone too far, thankfully, some cases can be resolved in court, as John Stossel explains in this column.

However, there is more to worry about than just local and state governments and their regulations that is a threat to the small business enterprises. On the federal level, it gets even worse. Everything from what Stossel has called crony capitalism, to unions, horrible legislation and tax laws, a bad economy, the coming ObamaCare, environmental regulators, OSHA, export regulations...  All of these are further attacks on business, especially to the small business entrepreneurs. Again, these are not things that have happened suddenly under Obama, but have been incrementally put in place over many decades. But yes, it could start getting MUCH worse under Obama. See the video below:

Halt the Assault on Small Business

Video provided by TheREALjohnny2k

You would think that with the economy being so bad, that more would be done to stimulate small business, the backbone of the country's economy. However, it seems that all Obama wants to do is grow the size of the federal government and help out the unions; not exactly what will get a lot of people back to work. Just sayin'...

UPDATE September 10, 2010: 
John Stossel was on Fox & Friends on Thursday a.m. and I just happened to get it uploaded to youtube:

John Stossel on Fox and Friends - Entrepreneurs under attack

Video provided by TheREALjohnny2k

It's great that IJ [Institute for Justice] and some determined entrepreneurs win a few victories for free enterprise. But in a country with a real free market, such lawsuits would be unnecessary.

Entrepreneurs under attack

By John Stossel

Posted: September 08, 2010
1:00 am Eastern

© 2010



Every day, federal, state and local governments stifle small businesses to privilege well-connected incumbent companies. It's a system of protectionism for influential insiders who don't want competition. Every locality has its share of business moguls who are cozy with politicians. Together, they use the power of government to keep competition down and prices high.

The Institute for Justice, a libertarian public-interest law firm, works to free entrepreneurs from such opportunity-killing regulations. Here are four cases from IJ's files:

Case No. 1.

The monks at St. Joseph Abbey had to take the state of Louisiana to federal court to defend their right to make money selling handmade caskets. That's right: empty wooden boxes.

As soon as the monks started selling them, they were shocked to receive a cease-and-desist order from something called the Louisiana State Board of Funeral Directors. The funeral directors had managed to get their state to pass a law decreeing that only "licensed funeral directors" may sell "funeral merchandise" like caskets. To sell caskets legally, the monks would have to obtain a funeral director's license. That required a year-long apprenticeship, passing a funeral industry test and converting their monastery into a "funeral establishment" by installing embalming equipment, among other things.

The state board and the Louisiana Funeral Directors Association – the profession's lobbyist – say the law is designed to protect consumers. But that's what established businesses always say about absurd regulations they demand.

An unusually candid funeral director told The Wall Street Journal, "They're cutting into our profit."

Well, yes, free competition does do that. That's the point.

Another funeral director said that the law must remain unchanged because casket-making is a complicated business: "A quarter of America is oversized. I don't even know if the monks know how to make an oversized casket."

Does that even deserve a comment?

READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com

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