As I’ve written here many times before, small companies and especially new companies are what create nearly all of the net new jobs in America, yet a new study released last week by the Hudson Institute suggests the rate of job formation by new firms is down dramatically in recent years, from an average of 11 new startup jobs per 1000 workers at a peak in 2006 down to 7.8 new startup jobs per 1000 workers in 2011 — a 29 percent decline. So is the startup economy losing its oomph and should we be worried? No the startup economy isn’t losing its oomph but yes, it’s time […]
Muhammad v. YouTube
Update — From reader comments below it sounds like many people think I am advocating some specific behavior from either YouTube or President Obama. That’s not true. I’m not proposing that either DO anything. I’m just explaining what I believe is happening and why, which is pretty much all I ever do around here if you haven’t noticed. I’m neither trying to hobble the First Amendment nor take any political or religious stand whatsoever. If people think I am doing ether, well they aren’t reading very carefully at all, because it simply isn’t in there. So settle down, everyone.
Moving on to any readers who […]
Thunderbolt, on an iPhone 5?
Update — It sounds like the iPhone 5’s “Lightning” port may not be a true “Thunderbolt” interface. So far the info on Lightning has been extremely vague. Thunderbolt is a 20 pin interface, Lightning appears to be a 10 pin interface. No one really knows right now. Apple claims it is an adaptive interface. Perhaps it can support USB 2.0 signals and a subset of the Thunderbolt interface. The USB “adapter” may simply align the power and data lines to the Lightning interface. USB has 2 power lines and 2 data lines. Lightning has 8 data lines. Perhaps it can operate with a variable number (2-8) of data lines. I wonder if they can support
Ticked off: How stock market decimalization killed IPOs and ruined our economy
Well it took me more than the one day I predicted to finish this column, which purports to explain that dull feeling so many of us have in our hearts these days when we consider the U.S. economy. Our entrepreneurial zeal is to some extent zapped. For a decade it seemed we needed to jump from bubble to bubble in order just to drive economic growth — growth that ultimately didn’t last. What happened? Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) went away, that’s what happened.
I wrote several columns on job creation over the last year, columns that explained in great detail how new businesses, young businesses, and small businesses create […]
Why hardly anyone in the U.S. economy feels prosperous anymore
A couple of years ago, in an obvious moment of poor judgement, the Kauffman Foundation placed this rag on its list of the top 50 economics blogs in America. So from time to time I feel compelled to write about economic issues and this Labor Day holiday in the U.S. provides a good excuse for doing so now. In a sense you could say I inherited this gig because my parents began their careers in the 1940s working for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This first of two columns looks at employment numbers in the current recovery while the second will try to explain why the economy has been […]
