It's because the risk ratio has changed for different people. If you're poor, there's much less to lose - you just become in debt, but you'd be there anyway. A

It's because the risk ratio has changed for different people. If you're poor, there's much less to lose - you just become in debt, but you'd be there anyway. America also has the megacorporations. Trillion dollar companies which can hire hundred of thousands of people and pay them what a medium-sized business owner would make. They have the economy of scale; they can pay a single engineer to increase profit by 0.01% and it would be more than a startup growing stuff by 3x. The odds of me joining a megacorp is nearly nil due to immigration restrictions, so businesses are still more sensible. It's probably the case for most of the world.