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Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

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Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#181

Post by xyzzyb »

Vivtek wrote: post #151
vm wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to define risk here. Startups are risky and most fail. That doesn't change, even if we gave people free health insurance and other benefits. Jon Stewart is arguing to increase the safety net so that downside of failure is less harsh. It won't make the downside scenario less likely, just not as brutal for those who experience it. But I bet his proposal would INCREASE the risk of failure for precisely that reas…

I disagree with this. It's one thing to hustle to make your ramen budget. It's another to hustle to succeed before your son needs that kidney transplant. There's hustle, and then there's killing stress. I can only surmise you're young and single.

I completely agree. When you have a family with serious (but treatable) medical conditions health insurance is not an option. Even if starting a business or doing freelance work would lead to a bigger paycheck: it wouldn't offset the loss of employer health insurance.

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#182

Post by jcromartie »

kdsudac wrote: post #21
jcromartie wrote: post #9

Countries with much broader safety nets for entrepreneurs are not producing the risky innovative companies that America is. But, as far as I can tell, health insurance really is the biggest factor keeping people from starting new companies. For myself and my peers, with new families and houses and student debt, etc., it's the one thing that scares us more than anything else. The prospect of a business going under is…

"Countries with much broader safety nets for entrepreneurs are not producing the risky innovative companies that America is." I was wondering whether this was the case. Is there actual data to back this up, or is it just anecdotal?

American companies dominate the startup space, and I don't think it's selection bias (i.e. because we are reading English language startup news) because the non-US startups seem to get attention as easily as US ones when they deserve it.

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#183

Post by graeme »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #5

OK, so, I am ardently socially liberal, and I've had a man-crush on Jon Stewart that hasn't waned ever since his appearance on Crossfire. But. I don't think that decreasing risk will result in more entrepreneurship. I would support a wider social safety net for entrepreneurs -- er, business owners -- on principle alone, because I think what we should be saying is that these people are vitally important to our economy…

> most people don't want to run their own business no matter how safe you make it.

So? That's like saying "most people won't become olympic athletes, so supporting olympic athletes won't lead to more participation in the olympics.

We only need to care about the population of people who might start their own businesses. Not every potential entrepreneur is an entrepreneur.

I'm in Canada. The fact that I don't have to worry about any major health costs was a big factor when I decided to start on my own.

I might fail, but there's less risk of a catastrophic failure scenario. I'm not the only one who weighs risk this way.

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#184

Post by PatentTroll »

sodafountan wrote: post #58

I think that this would result in hundreds of thousands of bad ideas hitting the marketplace and then the government having to bail out all of the crap that didn't succeed. Risk is there for a reason, it's to stop you from doing something stupid, to make you think twice about the decision you're about to make. I don't believe that we need government to bail out risk takers... not with the amount of national debt that…

As someone who started a company and failed, I can attest to the power of a safety net. I relied heavily on family when I was picking up the pieces, and I was acutely aware of my good fortune of having that backstop. Without it I would have literally been destitute. So many people don't have a family safety net to fall back on, and those people are basically foreclosed from taking a big risk like starting a company without risking being homeless and bankrupt.

Consider wealthy ivy-leaguers: Bill Gates and Mark Z's backstop was to go back to Harvard and probably get some support from their upper middle class families. Their plan B was way better than most people's plan A. I'd argue that they had comparatively little risk when starting out.

I don't see it as a government bail-out, but as a way to enable a whole swath of the population to take risks that they cannot otherwise. Something as simple as healthcare would make a huge difference for many people.

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#185

Post by chubbard »

zecho wrote: post #91
arbuge wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No... Those folks had no income tax. Income tax came later. The 90% bracket was extremely high when it existed and snared very few people.

Could you elaborate? The 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913 and from what I can tell the top marginal rate was in the 90s until 1964... http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Doc...

Remember they all made their fortunes pre-1913 so those monies weren't subject to taxes when they earned them. They lived well past 1913, but by then they were giving most of it away. Post 1913 they paid income tax on the money they earned it was just being giving away.

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#186

Post by yummyfajitas »

Anechoic wrote: post #175
yummyfajitas wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no gap because COBRA covers you (costs go up precisely 1%) until the next open enrollment. As for "open enrollment", this just means you need to start your business in July. Anechoic is right - anyone claiming they can't start a business in MA due to employer sponsored healthcare is just making excuses. See also "I'm a fatass because I don't have time to exercise", "I have no girlfriend because all the girls…

COBRA covers you (costs go up precisely 1%) When I was on COBRA, my out-of-pocket costs went up significantly more than 1% (compared to what I was paying for the same policy when I was employed). Anechoic is right - anyone claiming they can't start a business in MA due to employer sponsored healthcare is just making excuses. I didn't say that.

Your out of pocket costs may have gone up, but that's an arbitrary distinction. The total cost of cobra is precisely 101% of the cost of health insurance provided to your employer.

Now, it's possible your employer was giving you $Z worth of benefits but making you deduct $Y from your wages for it, and $Z > $Y. All this means is that your comp (and hence the opportunity cost of starting a business) was higher than you realized.

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#187

Post by leot »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #5

OK, so, I am ardently socially liberal, and I've had a man-crush on Jon Stewart that hasn't waned ever since his appearance on Crossfire. But. I don't think that decreasing risk will result in more entrepreneurship. I would support a wider social safety net for entrepreneurs -- er, business owners -- on principle alone, because I think what we should be saying is that these people are vitally important to our economy…

> I don't think that decreasing risk will result in more entrepreneurship.

Wait, really? You don't think people factor in downside risk when making life choices?

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#188

Post by sjg007 »

vm wrote: post #133
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't think that decreasing risk will result in more entrepreneurship. TOTALLY disagree, as well as with folks who are saying that "risk is an important part!" For one thing, there are a series of studies that show that people who are more risk tolerant actually create worse start-ups (for example, [1]). There is at least one meta-analysis that indicates that there's more risk tolerance in entrepreneurs (though th…

We need to define risk here. Startups are risky and most fail. That doesn't change, even if we gave people free health insurance and other benefits. Jon Stewart is arguing to increase the safety net so that downside of failure is less harsh. It won't make the downside scenario less likely, just not as brutal for those who experience it. But I bet his proposal would INCREASE the risk of failure for precisely that reas…

The contrast is Europe and the UK, where they have free health insurance and social safety nets. How many startups do we see there? By definition we should see more startups there and they should be driving forward.

I don't say I don't agree with having national health insurance, just trying to understand why the UK and Europe don't have the same level of startups.

Maybe it is all marketing anyway and maybe it is all access to capital.

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#189

Post by viviantan »

EricDeb wrote: post #124
viviantan wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm totally with you about loving Jon Stewart and I'm all for removing barriers for those inclined towards entrepreneurship. But the concept of creating safety nets to encourage more entrepreneurship strikes me as paradoxical. To an extent, the inherent risks that come with starting a new business is a good thing -- it forces would-be-entrepreneurs to assess critically what they would gain or lose before taking the p…

I agree, but I feel the more likely scenario is the 40 year old with domain expertise who is rationally confident he could strike out on his own but is hindered for fear of losing health insurance/income not only for himself, but for his family. The current conditions seem to discourage these individuals from starting companies in favor of the far more common mid-20s silicon valley web junkie who has far less to lose…

Thank you for pointing that out. Since this is Hacker News I can sometimes be a bit myopic about the different kinds of entrepreneurs.

Now that I think about it, the guy from Breaking Bad could be the perfect poster-boy (poster-man?) for what happens when middle-aged dudes don't have safety nets for starting legal businesses!

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#190

Post by goggles99 »

Nogwater wrote: post #172
goggles99 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It just baffles me that health coverage is so tied to where you work. What if you could only send your kids to the schools that your employer selected, or eat at the restaurants the your company had a deal with? It's just weird. I don't know if government provided insurance is the solution, but employer provided just doesn't make sense as the only solution. Does it baffle you that the school location for your kids i…

> Does it baffle you that the school location for your kids is so tied to where you live? No. Kids need to get to school, often by walking/biking. Schools can't afford to bus random kids in from 100 miles away. At least where I live (Ventura County, CA) parents are able to drive their kids to more distant schools if they prefer. As long as schools are a physical location where you have to show up to benefit from, it…

> Schools can't afford to bus random kids in from 100 miles away

This is my point... Affordability is the reason in both cases so I don't understand how this is so easy for you to understand with schools and so baffling with Employer paid health insurance. Do you thing that your HR dept could manage 100 different health care providers? do you think all the providers that you may wish to use are affordable to your company?

>All of those things are either related to the relationship between you and your employer. The 401k thing is a little funny. I'd rather take the cash and manage it myself. I'm assuming your point is that health care plans are just another form of compensation and if you don't like what's offered, quit and work somewhere else that offers something better. The problem is that 1) coverage chosen by the employer can change every year, 2) you can't get the same coverage at the same price on your own or at a small company, and 3) it's non-optimal because it bundles unrelated things and requires you, as a "consumer" of employment, to make your decisions based on the aggregate value instead of individual values of the components.

Money is a finite thing to your company and I just don't understand how you are baffled that you can't choose whatever health care you wish through your company. Whats more - with ObamaCare, you will still not be able to choose whatever health care provider you want so I don't see how you think that this will help you.

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