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At a time when we badly need innovation, less regulation — not more — is the answer.

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The economic fallout from COVID-19 is highlighting one challenge that entrepreneurs face all time: regulation stifles innovation.
Entrenched interests
You don’t have to look farther than the recipient list of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan program to see how even well-intentioned regulations — in this case, to protect small businesses from collapsing — end up serving entrenched interests far more than the people they purport to help. Among the list are Kanye West, Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform Foundation, perhaps most ironic, the Ayn Rand Institute.
Especially in a crisis, people look to regulations as the solution. But added regulation almost never helps the entrepreneur just starting out who wants to build a better economic future for their family. Instead, it favors the entrenched interests who can afford to lobby government officials.
Via negativa
Most often the solution is not additive. Rather, it’s what Nassim Taleb calls via negativa — it’s removing something often actually makes things more possible rather than adding another benefit to people.
I couldn’t schedule a dentist appointment for a period of time here in Colorado, but I could go to the pot shop. That’s the result of lobbying power. That regulation is not protecting my health as much as it’s protecting the entrenched interests of the pot industry.
CEO bailout
We bailed out the airlines, and in exchange they agreed to keep all employees on until the end of September, at which point they’ll lay them off. So we essentially took Americans’ money and set it on fire by filtering the dollars through the airlines.
Theoretically it helps employees, but only a little bit and for a little period of time. In reality it helps the CEOs who’ve made terrible decisions for a decade.
Resources
Three Felonies a Day, by Harvey Silverglate
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I did look into this a while ago as I have an amazing family recipe for granola. Colorado does have a "cottage foods" industry, which does allow for some foods to be made in a home kitchen and sold to individuals within the State. I do tend to lean towards regulating the food industry due to my experiences travelling abroad - me being the only person to not get food poisoning from the fish tacos for example... That being said, there are ways or loopholes around some of the regulations larger business would have to adhere to, but it would take the want and drive to find them.
https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/cdphe/cottage-foods-act
I can’t help but wonder what the age demographic is for the small towns that you referred too. There’s been a trend for the past few decades for young people to leave rural areas to move to cities for various reasons. I believe that innovation and ingenuity tend to follow youth. In small towns, where there are few young people, there would be the feeling that the community isn’t going to carry on. That alone would kill innovation. Perhaps now with more people able to work remotely, and being able to live wherever they like, we’ll start to see the rejuvenation of small-town America.
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