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Want to kickstart a century of unparalleled innovation and entrepreneurship in the US? Simple. But you have to cleanup the mess first. In other words, throw

Want to kickstart a century of unparalleled innovation and entrepreneurship in the US? Simple. But you have to cleanup the mess first. In other words, throw out all that is mismanaged, inefficient and abused and replace it with an infrastructure fine-tuned to iterate to optimize growth and innovation. This means making changes to government, workforce and taxation. Here's my (incomplete) list: - Pass a constitutional amendment that requires our government to operate under a balanced budget - Establish a maximum cost of government as a percent of GDP (or some other metric) in order to prevent a grab for more tax revenue to expand government and the pervasive always-spend-more culture - Reduce government to a bare minimum - Completely phase out all entitlement programs - Institute new --smaller-- programs to help those who really need them. - All businesses contribute a small percentage of gross to this program (1%?). The idea is to setup a system where government will have reason to work towards improving business activity in order to fund programs. Today they reach for optimizing tax revenues as opposed to optimizing economic activity which is far more important. - Make unions illegal for government workers. It's a huge conflict of interest: Government workers benefit from laws and the workings of government and form a unified voting block that is self-serving. - No lifetime pensions for anyone working in government. I'd go as far as making them illegal for anyone, period. There is no sensible mathematical formula that supports the idea of lifetime pensions. A person and their family ought to be responsible for their own retirement without becoming a burden for the rest of society for generations to come. These are business killers. - Fire everyone at the patent office - Create a new patent and trademark system who's priority is to optimize to maximize innovation while providing reasonable protections for work that requires massive R&D - Flat and low taxes - No deductions for anyone - Businesses pay zero taxes - Businesses contribute 5% of their gross to a national R&D fund - The fund is NOT accessible to anyone in government - The fund is administered by a team of CEO's from various industries. There could be other layers too. The main point is: No government claws can reach this fund. - The fund's goal is to provide financial support, legal and operational guidance to entrepreneurs. Call it a mega-incubator

sylvinus 14y ago
Are you Ron Swanson? ;-) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Swanson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Swanson)
- robomartin 14y ago
  I don't watch the show so I don't really get your comment. I knew my post would not be popular. That's OK. I am not a cargo-cult thinker. It's interesting that in a thread about innovation only one person so far --me-- brings-up the elephant in the room: Government, choking innovation in so many ways it is beyond criminal. I think most on HN would agree that the Patent Office has, in the last, say, 30 years, done more damage than good. Why does it take thirty years to fix it? Why does anything in government take FIFTY years to change? Notice I said "change" not "fix". They rarely fix anything. What's the impact on innovation of not having a balanced budget? An I mean, not balanced by a TRILLION dollars, not a few million? No impact at all? How is that possible? What is the impact to innovation of having tens of millions of Americans enslaved by entitlement programs? There exist people who have been living under these programs their entire lives, even families who've been under them for generations. Here's a huge mass of people who's very drive to live and succeed has been killed off by not having to fight for survival. Innovation does not happen when you are not hungry. Period. We have to break this chain of slavery and get these people to re-join society. Those who truly need help ought to receive it through sensible programs. That's a small percentage of those currently under these programs. We also need to limit government and keep them away from industry. I mean, stuff like the NLRB and their fight against Boeing. I'll tell you, if I were running Boeing I would have said "Fuck you all, we are moving the entire operation to Canada until you figure out that unions are the enemy of innovation and growth.". What's the impact to innovation of the double-taxation that happens with revenue generated by businesses: Tax the employees once and then, if anything remains, tax the company. Criminal. You are taxing the same pile of money that came in through the same door! C'mon folks, picture it this way: You start a landscaping business. You have a job this weekend. You finish the job with four other workers. The tax man shows-up. You paid each worker and yourself $100. The tax man takes $20 from everyone. You spent $100 on supplies. That means $400 remains. This is $400 to save for a rainy day, advertise to get more work, hire more people, grow the business, etc. The tax man doesn't leave. He wants another $80 bite out of the same money. So, the same money got taxed twice. And now you have less money to tend to your business. To make things even worst. The $180 the tax man collected is going to be wasted by government in a million different ways. Anyhow, innovation does not come from those who sign-on to cargo-culture and simply parrot what their circle is also parroting. I know I am not voicing popular culture at all. That's OK, I am not a clone. I innovate.

sylvinus 14y ago

Are you Ron Swanson? ;-) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Swanson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Swanson)

robomartin 14y ago
I don't watch the show so I don't really get your comment. I knew my post would not be popular. That's OK. I am not a cargo-cult thinker. It's interesting that in a thread about innovation only one person so far --me-- brings-up the elephant in the room: Government, choking innovation in so many ways it is beyond criminal. I think most on HN would agree that the Patent Office has, in the last, say, 30 years, done more damage than good. Why does it take thirty years to fix it? Why does anything in government take FIFTY years to change? Notice I said "change" not "fix". They rarely fix anything. What's the impact on innovation of not having a balanced budget? An I mean, not balanced by a TRILLION dollars, not a few million? No impact at all? How is that possible? What is the impact to innovation of having tens of millions of Americans enslaved by entitlement programs? There exist people who have been living under these programs their entire lives, even families who've been under them for generations. Here's a huge mass of people who's very drive to live and succeed has been killed off by not having to fight for survival. Innovation does not happen when you are not hungry. Period. We have to break this chain of slavery and get these people to re-join society. Those who truly need help ought to receive it through sensible programs. That's a small percentage of those currently under these programs. We also need to limit government and keep them away from industry. I mean, stuff like the NLRB and their fight against Boeing. I'll tell you, if I were running Boeing I would have said "Fuck you all, we are moving the entire operation to Canada until you figure out that unions are the enemy of innovation and growth.". What's the impact to innovation of the double-taxation that happens with revenue generated by businesses: Tax the employees once and then, if anything remains, tax the company. Criminal. You are taxing the same pile of money that came in through the same door! C'mon folks, picture it this way: You start a landscaping business. You have a job this weekend. You finish the job with four other workers. The tax man shows-up. You paid each worker and yourself $100. The tax man takes $20 from everyone. You spent $100 on supplies. That means $400 remains. This is $400 to save for a rainy day, advertise to get more work, hire more people, grow the business, etc. The tax man doesn't leave. He wants another $80 bite out of the same money. So, the same money got taxed twice. And now you have less money to tend to your business. To make things even worst. The $180 the tax man collected is going to be wasted by government in a million different ways. Anyhow, innovation does not come from those who sign-on to cargo-culture and simply parrot what their circle is also parroting. I know I am not voicing popular culture at all. That's OK, I am not a clone. I innovate.