SUBMITTED AS LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE BOOTHBAY REGISTER


Dear Senator Trahan and Representative Bruce McDonald,

I wrote to you couple of days ago about The Small Business Growth Fund.

This fund was created in 1995 and appears to be a state government investment in private entreprership for high growth companies doing "public good" (which raises the question who decides what is for the "public good"-does the taxpayer have a voice in this or just the fund managers ?)

I asked what does the taxpayer get out of it? I would think that if tax-payers have invested in a private investment company that this information would be readily available and assessable to the general public but I cannot find it.

I would assume that if every dollar the taxpayer puts in is matched by nine dollars of private investment, that the taxpayer is a 10% shareholder in the company- But as I have never seen this stated, it remains only an assumption.

On the basis of that assumption, it leads to the question- Why is our state government in so much debt? I saw pitches at the Juice Conference that speculated profits in the billions. If this is the sort of "high growth" that SBGF invests in, then, why haven't the taxpayers, like the good citizens of Alaska, under the governorship of Sarah Palin, received dividends in the mail?

Is it because of the even higher costs of our state entitlement programs?

Entitlements help, especially when people do not have jobs- but even slaves have entitlements. Entitlements are an investment that slave owners have to make to maintain their assets.

Where are the "opportunity" programs for the small scale and modest growth sector of the micro-economy- which is clearly excluded from investment by the taxpayer- funded Small Business Growth Fund?

We need a new category for the small business sector that is not classifiable as "high -growth" capitalism or non-profit organizations. This is truly the private sector micro-economy- those small businesses on "Main Street", that we heard so much about when our Federal government was selling TARP to the public. We haven't heard anything about Main Street since then but the credit freeze is still alive and well on Main Street whose primary source of capital investment is self-generated profit, which ,with many small businesses filing as S-corporations,(profit reported on individual returns) will be taxed heavily if self-generated profit exceeds $250,000.00. Then the private citizen will be taxed to an increased degree in order to fund our ever expanding federal government and to pay the interest on our federal government's rapidly escalating debt.

Where are the "opportunity programs" for the people? The United States is transforming from the land of opportunity into the land of entitlements. If there was a growth in opportunity, there would not be such a large need for entitlements. When the House was first formulating the "Stimulus Bill" they called the small business sector " the engine of new job creation" and then allocated 200 billion dollars for food stamps and $450 million for loans for small businesses, which includes the "high growth" businesses that are exclusively favored by Maine's Small Business Growth Fund. Add to that continual extensions in unemployment and a federal administration that only recently got the idea that maybe it should focus on job creation- this after months of promoting the citizens of this country to "volunteer" service. Once the citizenry is programmed to accept that they MUST volunteer service, the dots can be connected between receiving entitlements and "mandatory" volunteer service- and there you have it- the people of the United States squarely become the slaves of concentrated power and wealth.

The Small Business Growth Fund was created by our state legislature in 1995. Times have changed. Where is the Small Business growth fund for small scale and modest growth companies, which are the foundational basis of a flourishing middle class? My family business was started in 1952 with the philosophy of creating a hand made product affordable to the middle class. In those days the middle class was flourishing and the distribution of wealth took the form of a bell curve, with the greatest amount of wealth distributed among the greatest number of people.

Both sides of the political divide agree that we need to move back to a more equitable distribution of wealth- but all the solutions for doing so are targeted at funding and stimulating growth at the top. This is not working! When is someone in government going to get the revolutionary idea of stimulating growth at the bottom to middle sector of the economy? Where is the Main Street Economy Growth Fund? It is in our self-generated profits, capped at $250,000.00 before being heavily taxed to fund the hegemony of concentrated power and wealth that is the new face of government.

Sincerely,
Mackenzie Andersen
East Boothbay, Maine

The Juice Conference- There is no creative class- It's everywhere!

I gave my pitch at the Juice Conference to a response of “Excellent” but I didn’t make it to the semi-finals. I watched about three fourths of the semi-finalist pitches. They were mostly “high growth” and politically correct “green” companies, patterned on policies set by Washington- favoring the same companies working towards “social goodness’ as benefited through the Stimulus Bill. I believe that businesses that are not “high growth” didn’t really stand a chance at winning the grant. But maybe in my premature departure, I missed the exception to the rule.

A popular belief - shared by both sides of the political divide - is that there is an imbalance in the distribution of wealth, which needs to be righted.

My family business was formed in the 1950’s with the philosophy of creating a hand made product affordable to the middle classes. In those days there was a middle class – the distribution of wealth took the form of a bell curve, with the largest amount of wealth distributed among the greater number of people. The middle class is content when it has enough to satisfy its needs. This is different than enforced equality of wealth because middle class values in a capitalistic society allows that needs are individually determined. I wonder if those who are focused on high growth have a purpose that justifies the rapid accumulation of wealth or is the rapid and aggressive accumulation of wealth an end in itself? This is not wrong, but if society exclusively awards the one who pursues wealth for wealth’s sake, then of course there will be a big wide-open space between the rich and the poor.

There were many pitches on "green" technology, one of them speculated profits in the billions- same as with oil- energy equals big profits. The speculated profit, in the billions, only promised to deliver 100 Maine jobs.

The pitchers were competing for a grant- not an investment or a loan, - a grant! So why give it to the highest growth companies? Isn’t a grant given for “non-profit” motivations? The grant is modest and so the impact on a high growth company is minimal compared to the impact on a smaller scale company- but that did not factor in to the decision making process of the judges- well maybe it did in the end, I don’t know, I wasn’t there.

Now – here’s the thing, we have one sector, the non-profits, who consider themselves to be the do-gooders, and then we have the for profit high growth companies that are clearly out to make a profit- the bigger and faster the better- and then we have for profit businesses that are small in scale and modest in growth, based in the middle class economy- you know, the middle class that is content with having enough wealth to satisfy their needs, not driven to create wealth for wealth’s sake because- there are after all other types of wealth, meaning for instance.

The middle class is mostly outside of the conceptual scheme of “the creative economy”. When the “creative economy” talks about the arts, they talk about what non-profit organizations can do for non-profit organizations. That other face of the “creative economy” is the “high-growth” companies- in a specific formulation- capitalism driven by profit motive but cleansed through “social good”.

Seldom in the “creative economy” do we find the middle class- is not the middle class a “social good”? If what we seeking, as a society is a more equitable distribution of wealth, we can either enforce an oppressive equality- or we can rediscover the values of the middle class. Shouldn’t there be somewhere in the scheme of things, a support system for the middle class? For businesses that just want to thrive- not grow rapidly and aggressively? Is there not intrinsic value and meaning in slow growth? While both sides seek a more equitable distribution of wealth, the middle class is being squeezed by frozen credit, taxes, and the only available capitalization is the bootstrap economy of self-generated profits. Wouldn’t it be fair, in terms of equitable distribution of wealth that a modest grant is granted to a situation where it makes the greatest impact? “Modesty” really is a “good cause”. And another thing about the middle class- they are not trying to oversee the management of the whole system. They are content to let God do that.