As a counterpoint, countries that already have this are far behind the US in small business creation. Despite this supposed handicap, the United States has the most dynamic large economy in the world. It turns out that the government soaking up a large portion of the GDP to pay for expensive public benefits diverts capital away from financing private ventures, and this has a detrimental effect on entrepreneurship.
If universal health care were really that important to entrepreneurship, why isn't Silicon Valley in Europe?
That's certainly an interesting link. I knew that over 99% of US businesses are considered "small" employing half the population, but I didn't know that Europe had such a vibrant entrepreneurial society. I'll admit, I'm in middle of a Programming Languages final so I didn't do a lot of statistical digging and relied on anecdote instead.
Still the authors of that study do appear to have an ideological axe to grind. I would be interested in researching the matter further from a less ideological source. I'm curious why we think of the United States having such a large share of the world's startups and invention if it isn't true.
What I got from that link is that "small business percentage" is not a reliable indicator of entrepreneurial spirit.
One interpretation of the data presented here is that self-employment and small-business
employment may be a less important indicator of entrepreneurship than we have long thought.
Another reading of the data, however, is that the United States has something to learn from the
experience of other advanced economies, which appear to have had much better luck promoting
and sustaining small-business employment.
The self-employment rates in Figure 1 are particularly high in Greece (35.9 percent), Italy (26.4),
Portugal (24.2), and several other countries where agriculture is still an important part of national
employment.
Lets compare this to the profitability of the countries (dollars mean billion dollars). I'm not an economist so I don't know whether this makes sense at all.
Country selfemployed export import net
========================================
Greece 35.9% $27 $82 $-55 (ouch)
Italy 26.4% $369 $358 $+11
Portugal 24.2% $58 $88 $-30
Spain 17.7% $216 $293 $-77
Germany 12.0% $1,187 $1,022 $+65
Netherlands 12.4% $398 $359 $+39
EU ~13%* $1,952 $1,690 $+262
US 7.2% $995 $1,445 $-450
* I eyeballed this from the data in the PDF posted above
So within the EU there doesn't seem to be a positive correlation between net income of a country and self employment (or if there is one it's negative), except maybe that self employment is higher in the EU than in the US and net income of the EU is positive whereas net income of the US is negative (Anyone want to make a table of the full data set? Export and import can be found on wikipedia and self employment in the PDF posted above).
Offtopic: While browsing wikipedia I found this: External debt of Luxembourg is 4,973.68% of GDP (not kidding). Is this something to be very scared about if you live in Luxembourg, or is it not a big problem? Can somebody with a understanding of the matter explain this? :) Edit: Oh I think I get it: it's the amount they borrow, not the net amount of lending/borrowing.
Using exports - imports to measure the "profit" of a country is deeply, deeply flawed. The US can consume more than it produces because other countries invest the dollars they earn from trade in American assets. High demand for American assets is not a bad thing.
the US's advantage is not that people are self employed. it is that one can start a business and grow it rapidly (or slowly and steadily), eventually hiring a lot of people and/or creating efficiencies for those using the product or service.
in other words, its the ability to be entrepreneur and not have boot anchors placed in you path. having many small shops making products by hand is not what creates wealth
I agree, and politicians agree more and more too, even the left wing wants to make it easier for new companies, especially technology companies (and in many ways center right wing in Europe is left of left wing in the US). Unfortunately it's still int he "talk" stage and it's unclear if they will enter the "do" stage soon. But the numbers show that the US is currently consuming a lot more wealth than it is creating whereas the EU is producing more. Why is this despite US's focus on economy and EU's focus on welfare states? This may be because of a higher standard of living in the US and not because of lower productivity.
I believe the US is consuming more than it is producing because government is borrowing so much and because the private sector borrowed so much due to the Fed's chronically below market interest rates.
All this borrowing makes it inevitable that the US consumes more than it produces. It must import as much goods and labor as it borrows, just as you would if you borrowed a large sum of money.
You spend that money to get things from other people or to get their labor. And you will have to pay them back eventually, which is when you will produce more than you consume.
So, while the US may produce more new business and more wealth than other systems, there is also another thing happening at the same time. Namely, all of the borrowing done to create houses and government services we really cannot afford and probably don't need anyway.
Unfortunately, if you want to pursue anything on topics such as these, you will need to live with the existence biases including your own.
For what it's worth it seems to me like the abstract ideological debate between state and private control tends to be vibrant in The States and therefore breeds more "ideological" positions.
And it does strike me as weird that I have a lot of friends from third world countries that come here because they view America as the land of entrepreneurial opportunity, when this study shows that they would be much better off in Germany.
There are factors that are equally or even more important, like taxes, availability of capital, bureaucratic hurdles etc. I once heard from a German restaurant owner that he fought 12 years to get a permission to put tables in the garden...
Another factor might be that it's possible to get accepted as an American in a few years. In Germany you may be a naturalized citizen on paper--but the real social acceptance of compatriots runs through bloodlines. (I.e. you have to look the part, too.)
Not that they won't be nice to you. But your children will stay, say, "Turks" in the third generation and onwards.
A convenience store owner in Germany whose father and grandfather owned and worked in the same store can't be put into the same category as a 25 year old who quits his job to found a groundbreaking internet technology company.
Both count as small businesses. One is changing the world, the other one is not.
I wonder why does the US have such a high reputation in entrepreneurship. Is it because we have a higher concentration of high tech start-ups (unverified), which generate more buzz in the media?
* Because it's much harder to fire employees in EU, which makes employing people much riskier.
* Because the rules for employing people (working hours, vacation, etc) are much stricter.
* Because entrepreneurship is stigmatized in EU.
* Because insolvency in the EU involves years of trusteeship and significant legal hardship.
* Because selling in the EU and elsewhere abroad involves more border crossings and different regulatory regimes.
* Because taxes in EU are spectacularly high, not just for the top earners but all the way down through the middle class.
You could fix all of these today (bk reform is apparently a major theme in Europe) and it might still be a generation before the region becomes competitive with the US.
Thanks for that comment. So many arguments break things down into simple one-dimensional reductionist perspectives. There are so many material differences between the US and the EU that it's impossible to predict exactly how incremental regulatory changes in either place will change things.
I remember a joke I heard a few years ago about how by law German offices must have windows and German garages must not have windows, so you can't ever start a company in your garage.
>If universal health care were really that important to entrepreneurship, why isn't Silicon Valley in Europe?
Because universal health care is not a sufficient condition for entrepreneurship, only an important one. I might go so far as to call it semi-necessary, but obviously if you have a spouse with corporate health care (as I do), or are less risk averse, you can make do without universal health care.
Silicon Valley has other things which beat the pants-off of Europe in terms of encouraging entrepreneurship (fewer roadblocks, easier access to capital, easy access to large markets, a culture where entrepreneurs are looked up to)
That's debatable. Is it the tax (as a proportion of GDP), OH&S regulations, other work regulations (i.e. ease of hiring and firing), immigration policy, education system, red-tape for businesses, pump-priming (from lucrative defense contracts), resources (good soil, some oil, lots of mines), federal-state-local structure, the number of states (which means other states can cherry-pick regulations that work from their neighbors), or what?
As I see it, the US spends a fortune on health, and gets a dodgy system. It's not quite the caricature Michael Moore paints, but he doesn't seem too far from the mark. Whether that is funded by companies (health benefits for employees - more red tape than in countries with universal health) or by individuals (which lowers individual risk tolerance) is immaterial. Public health works better than private health, according to all the numbers I've seen.
> We see doctors less, spend more than twice the average anyway, and have below average life expectancy.
And we have a very different population. Obesity is only the most obvious example. And no, healthcare doesn't address obesity, even if your argument requires that it do so.
And we spend more on end-of-life. Unless govt death panels are going to be more frugal than private ones, that cost-differential will persist.
And we pay for a huge fraction of the world's drug development. Are you planning to cut back there?
Well over $150B of existing medicare/medicaid spending is fraudulent, which is significantly more than the "excess overhead and profits" of private insurance. Will that go up or down?
I agree with all your explicit points, and I realize that graph is a very crude indicator.
Also, I agree with the implicit point I think you are making, which is that this reform really does nothing to address these issues. (Although I would also say that I'm fine paying for the drug development. We shouldn't stop doing something that benefits us just because others can take advantage.)
So yeah, I really don't have a rebuttal because I agree with you. I wanted much more out of reform, but at this point I'm happy with anything that might get us a bit closer, especially if it makes it easier to reform in the future (which may be wishful thinking).
This sort of economic handwaving makes a lot of assumptions. Silicon Valley isn't in Europe for a lot of reasons, American engineers being the driving force behind it notwithstanding. We have such a strong small business unit because (a) a lot of our economy has always been driven by small business (that "American ingenuity" people always talk about and (b) U.S. laws are very friendly to the small business.
And since when does our government really get involved with "financing private ventures"? Banks aren't paying out for insurance (and will probably pay slightly less under this reform), and most VC's will have to pay about 2% more in tax. So maybe 5-10 useless web startups a year won't happen, but I don't think it's going to slow down small businesses at all. Many of the people I know who would start one or join an existing one can't because of health insurance.
r.e. your first paragraph. I think that is partly Our Country bias - because people here (UK) will say the same about the UK.
We are generally small business friendly (I've had one, my parents have 2 going strong) but I don't expect we are particularly better, in reality, than anyone else :)
> If universal health care were really that important to entrepreneurship, why isn't Silicon Valley in Europe?
Because what makes Silicon Valley is a whole mix of factors? After all, why can't other US states copy Silicon Valley, even though a number of them dearly want to?
Because in the (European) country where I live, entrepreneurship is not part of the culture. Not once in my entire education did it occur to me that people actually start businesses (despite both my parents being self-employed). Education focuses on skills, society and some culture, but not at all on economics or entrepreneurship.
This counts for any level of schooling, including University. The number of IT spinoffs from my alma mater in the past decade can be counted on one hand.
I would imagine a big part of that is attributable to how friendly US laws are to the formation of new businesses. One of the most interesting things in the recent DHH interview by Calacanis was when DHH mentioned that in Europe, founders are personally liable for the money they're spending on their new business. The business he was working for went under, and the guys in charge spent years paying back the money they had taken.
This is very much not true. You are liable up to the amount of capital invested in the typical company in most European countries. The minimum capital investment varies by country, but you are never liable for more than that in that form of company. There are other company forms where you are liable, but if you are going into a risky field you should not be using those. The way I understood it, the guys DHH was working for took credit in their own name to finance the company, which is generally a bad idea.
I believe part of the reason for the existence of Silicon Valley in the US is Stanford and Berekely. You have two great schools that attract the smartest engineers from all over the country.
That doesn't exist in Europe. Firstly, there is an economic disadvantage to studying in a different EU country, and most importantly there are cultural and language barriers. Instead of having a concentration of the smartest engineers studying within a couple of colleges, you have smart people being distributed rather sparsely over quite a large area.
i agree. but the chicken or egg had to come from somewhere. where the talent came from is, i bet, a good story in itself. i think David Packard and Bill Hewlett (arguably the original silicon valley founders to have great success) set a great tone. at the time, very few employees had no stake in a company and stuff like flex-time didn't even exist. all these perks, i'm sure also played a role in attracting great talent (you can see it with Google and others today).
There's a difference between "covered" and "doesn't matter". What I'm not sure about is what, if any, the price difference in premiums will be. Just because they're required to cover you doesn't mean they have to do it cheaply.
I do know adults with preexisting conditions will be in some sort of special "temporary pool", whatever that might mean. No clue on the cost.
When Obama signs the bill, anybody with a pre-existing condition will be able to a (temporary) national insurance plan for those with high-risk conditions. In 2014, it will become illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, and that plan will end.
What does "insurance" mean? There are innumerable products which fall under that name. Which will I be required to purchase?
I'm 24 with no health problems. My yearly health expenditures are near zero. My largest expenses are probably biannual teeth cleanings. I really don't need health care.
However if I am hit by a truck I would like to be able to afford someone to set my leg in a cast. So I have true insurance with a high deductible($1500USD/year). This coverage is dirt cheap.
Will I have to pay significantly more in 2014? Why should I have to subsidize fat baby-boomers?
What do you plan on doing if you get a serious illness? Could you afford the deductibles for that? The whole point of insurance is that you have to buy it before something bad happens. It's incredibly risky and stupid to gamble on the fact that you're currently young and healthy.
>Why should I have to subsidize fat baby-boomers?
Who you're subsidizing depends on how you think about it. An alternative is to consider that you're subsidizing your future old, unhealthy self. Once you're old and unhealthy, no-one's going to want to sell you a new insurance plan with better coverage. (Ignoring whatever changes the recent bill might bring about.)
I'm not talking about social security. If you enroll in a more comprehensive health insurance plan while you are young and healthy, it will pay for expensive treatment when you are older. But by the time you are old and unhealthy, it will probably be too late to upgrade your insurance.
By definition, you can't wait until you're at high risk of requiring expensive treatment before you insure for it.
I am because it's another intergeneration transfer system.
> If you enroll in a more comprehensive health insurance plan while you are young and healthy, it will pay for expensive treatment when you are older.
Only if said plan sets aside some of the money that you pay now for your future care or there's some source of money in the future for that care. (You're rejecting the third alternative - that you pay your expected costs as you go.)
SS supposedly promised the former (loans to govt) but it's actually the latter (those loans have to be repaid by future taxpayers).
If you don't expect that future taxpayers will be willing to pay you for what you're paying now in SS taxes, why do you think that they'll be willing to pay for your healthcare?
Yes, I know that boomers are getting away with this. Do you think that later generations will?
>Only if said plan sets aside some of the money that you pay now for your future care
No, that's just false. It will pay for your future treatment as long as the insurance company is legally obliged to foot the bill. It has nothing to do with the total amount you pay in -- the whole point of the insurance business is that a company is not guaranteed to make a profit on each individual customer.
If you stopped trying to turn this into a debate over social security, you might be less confused on this point.
> >Only if said plan sets aside some of the money that you pay now for your future care
> No, that's just false. It will pay for your future treatment as long as the insurance company is legally obliged to foot the bill.
You're assuming that the insurance will have money then. I'm pointing out what it takes to make that assumption true.
The relevant term is "counter-party risk", aka the "blood from a turnip" problem.
> the whole point of the insurance business is that a company is not guaranteed to make a profit on each individual customer.
While that's true, it's also true that the total payout plus expenses must be less than the total premiums plus any investment income. Savings and borrowing allows some time-shifting and smoothing but if payouts are too high relative to revenue, the company goes down, regardless of its obligations.
You believe that today's young will receive care when they're old that costs more than they'll pay then. Where is the extra money coming from? It can't be the extra money that they're being asked to pay now because that money is being spent now on today's old people. So, it can only be from tomorrow's young people.
You don't believe that future generations will pay your SS benefits. Why do you believe that they'll pay for your healthcare?
>You're assuming that the insurance will have money then. I'm pointing out what it takes to make that assumption true.
It's not necessary for everyone to pay in as much as they get out in order for that to be the case.
>You believe that today's young will receive care when they're old that costs more than they'll pay then.
As I've repeatedly said, I believe that some of them will. I.e. those who have unusually severe medical conditions for which it would not be feasible to save.
> You don't believe that future generations will pay your SS benefits.
I wasn't saying anything about future generations paying for anything. Again, this really has nothing to do with social security; you are just confused about this.
You've repeatedly claimed that making young people pay now means that there will be money for them (collectively) when they are old.
Where is the money to care for them (collectively) when they're old coming from? It's not coming from the money that they're paying collectively now - that money is being spent. It's not coming from them (collectively) when they're old. That leaves tomorrow's young.
Today's older folks (collectively) get subsidized-by-young health care. Are tomorrow's older folks going to be able to do the same?
>You've repeatedly claimed that making young people pay now means that there will be money for them (collectively) when they are old.
Nope, I didn't say the "collectively" part. I keep explaining this.
>Are tomorrow's older folks going to be able to do the same?
Sure, if the young keep paying. But as I explained, there is no fact of the matter about which young people are subsidizing which old people. One way of looking at it is that young people are subsidizing their older selves, while the current generation of older people are being subsidized by their earlier payments when they were young. There's money going in and money going out, but when it comes to the question of "who's subsidizing whom", it largely depends on how you look at it. It's not as if John Smith's dollar bills are marked so you can see exactly who he's subsidizing.
You didn't use the word collectively, but we are talking about groups and you kept insisting that I was talking about individuals.
> >Are tomorrow's older folks going to be able to do the same?
> Sure, if the young keep paying.
Hold that thought.
> One way of looking at it is that young people are subsidizing their older selves, while the current generation of older people are being subsidized by their earlier payments when they were young.
More money is being spent on old people healthcare than old people are paying for healthcare. From that we know that their heathcare is being subsidized. We also know that young people are paying more for healthcare than they're receiveing AND that the surplus is going to old people healthcare. In other words, young people, as a group, are subsidizing old people, again as a group. (Yes, within each group, some folks are going against the flow.)
Since the young people's surplus is being spent today, it's absurd to say that their surplus is going to their future selves. If it was, there'd be money available when they got old even if tomorrow's young didn't keep paying more than they cost collectively.
> It's not as if John Smith's dollar bills are marked so you can see exactly who he's subsidizing.
I'm not talking about individuals. I'm talking about groups.
However, now that you've said "if the young keep paying", I'll ask how that's any different from social security. (SS payouts aren't strictly determined by contributions - there's a huge "insurance" portion.) Yes, the variance within a group is larger, but both are intergeneration wealth transfers.
If you don't think that tomorrow's young are going to be willing to pay for your generation's SS, what makes you think that they'll be willing to pay for your healthcare? (If you do think that they'll pay for your SS, it's probably reasonable to assume that they'll also pay for your healthcare.)
It usually makes sense not to have insurance against any event that your resources can comfortably absorb. If that were not the case, insurance companies would not be profitable.
My brother was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of cancer last year, a few hours after taking possession of his first home and being responsible for a mortgage. He had 14 hours of surgery to remove an eye socket and half of the top of his jaw and then rebuild it with titanium and hip bone. 10+ weeks of radiation treatment. They're about to start what is technically cosmetic surgery, to give him new teeth and tighten up the side of his face they've been working on. He's back at work now, but he had about 4 months off work.
The cost of the medical treatment? A few thousand for sundry expenses. Australia's Medicare system picked up the tab for virtually all of it. He asked them the face value (hoho!) of the treatments, but no one was really sure how to work it out - it's at least 6 figures. I dread to think what it would have cost in the US...
He didn't lose his house or car. The baby that was born during his treatment didn't bankrupt anyone. He still has a job.
What a chilling example of a socialist government system interfering in his personal life!
According to the CBS summary of the bill as passed by the House (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20000846-503544.html), the ability to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions will be phased out, and such denials will be banned starting in 2014.
