Instead of pouring money into failed corporate entities like GM and AIG, why not start a Business Reconstruction Corporation?
The BRC should provide seed money to anyone with a decent business plan.
Shouldn't they?
The qualifications should be piss poor. Any small business plan that breathes should be okay.
If you have a hunch?
That should be good enough to get some cash.
I'm not joking.
You can't just urinate on the public and not offer this kind of thing.
I'm pissed.
So, back to reality, back to the BRC.
The BRC should be run with the understanding that most businesses fail.
So, accordingly, the BRC should gain from whatever windfalls arise from the few success stories that it creates. Since there is a good chance that a Google-like company could be the result of such an endeavor, then it's reasonable to assume that the BRC would, just like any other venture capital firm, be a beneficiary of that New Google, and be able to pass profits on to taxpayers from any IPOs that follow.
The BRC would be temporary, like some of the New Deal agencies were.
-------- background discussion ---------------
There's a lot of controversy about the $700 billion bailout, especially here on the ground. I'm a software engineer for PayPal and, generally, my friends are either fellow techies or folks trying to start a business, and almost everyone I know has the same feeling about the bailout -- how does it help, exactly?
We understand how it helped, from an emergency standpoint. We understand the core economics of what has gone wrong, and that, even though this whole thing was started by a massive overdose of government-sanctioned gambling, the only way out is to find a way to stabilize the situation. We get that.
But, at the end of the day, when all the money is spent, everyone will be asking why so much money was poured into failed corporate entities. There will be criminal investigations, lawsuits, and terabytes of angry blogs asking why.
Meanwhile, the people on the ground, the construction workers who have some operations know-how but are unwilling to start a business because of all the red tape and (sometimes) corporate intimidation, the finance guys who've worked in multiple banking scenarios and have considered that there may be other ideas for moving money, the software engineers who have a great idea but can only execute it by hiring cut and pasters from the subcontinent... these are the people who will drive the recovery... and the ones consumed by fear.
How do we help them tne ones who aren't in bed with TechCrunch start a business? How many smart people do YOU know who could develop a business with ease, joy, and glory, if only the government impediments to success were not there? And if only TechCrunch, or someone like him, could help?
Let GM fail (slowly, and so that it is not a shock to the system). Just make sure you provide some support for the workers who get killed by the failure. Help them start businesses, help them create new supply chains so that they can re-invent our economy. I know some blue collar dudes who still lament the death of America's leadership in the tool and die industry and who swear that, given a boost and a little less red tape, they could bring it back.
We can't have progressive socialism in this country, something I personally believe in, if entrepreneurship dies. We need, in fact, an industrial policy in America that nurtures entrepreneurship, but not in the way either Democrats or Republicans think.
The BRC is the first step towards that end. The Business Reconstruction Corporation will focus on allowing us to let failed corporations wither away, like they're supposed to in a free market.
The BRC will have a simple mandate. Provide seed money to a wide variety of startups. If Karen Mills is really a venture capitalist, she will support this end.
If Karen Mills is a "venture capitalist", as the mainstream media says she is, then all is good in the world.
Problem is, I don't know who she is. And googling her didn't help. All I got was conflict. And that doesn't help us, in the New World Order. Does it?