Economic Growth

By Glen Clifford "Bud" Rogers, II

We simply must create a more nurturing environment for small businesses to flourish. Cottage industries, artist entrepreneurs, service industries can all be helped through permit facilitation, incubator facilities and access to micro-loan financing, to give some examples.

Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and especially small manufacturing. Workers, who take resources from the earth to create products, create all wealth. Through this concept of "added value", we have increased by many times the original value of the resource.

We simply must create a more nurturing environment for small businesses to flourish. Cottage industries, artist entrepreneurs, service industries can all be helped through permit facilitation, incubator facilities and access to micro-loan financing, to give some examples.

The main caveat in all of this is the (mostly unasked) question, "How does globalization figure into our economic future?" I suggest a series of strategic planning meetings to assess the impacts that free trade is having and will have on our small businesses. We need to be able to respond to these market forces in a positive way. Failure to consider the possible impacts of globalization will be at our own peril.