Who Killed The Jobs?

Here’s a telling comment:

The drop in employment is unsurprising to those of us in the small business sector where 90% of jobs are created. In 2004 I helped start a company with two partners. We invested $500K of risk capital, put a traditional company infrastructure in place and eventually hired over a dozen people. Why? Because sentiment was positive, HSA plans were inexpensive, and growth a reality. After four years of solid growth, we sold our company to a public company, where we continued to work. In all that time, my proudest moments came from giving young people a career start in life. Many have gone on to work for places such as Symantec, Facebook and Wells Fargo. Today, my partners and I are independent, making good livings — solo. It makes ZERO economic sense for us to start a company again and employ people. The health plan we had is no longer available and coverage is twice as costly. The regulatory burdens are overwhelming and getting worse. We can see only risk on the horizon and little reward to justify that risk. So a dozen bright, talented 20somethings will likely never get the same chance to enter the private workforce.

Here are the two charts that say it all.

[Update a while later]

Some people aren’t seeing the comments at the Powerline post. I see them, but perhaps one has to be logged into Facebook to do so. A good reason not to use FB for comments. Anyway, at least that first comment is available for viewing here.



Chimichangapalooza

What’s amusing about this kerfuffle is that the chimichanga is the Mexican-food equivalent of chop suey, which is a dish invented in San Francisco, and no one in China had ever heard of. It’s not from south of the border, but originated in Tucson, at the best restaurant in town when it comes to Tucsonian cuisine. And most places in other locales don’t really know how to do it, often adding beans or rice, making it a mere fried burrito. It’s best filled with carne seca, an El Charro specialty that is also not widely available. The other things that are local to southern Arizona, but hasn’t made it much farther is a cheese crisp (flour tortilla topped with monterey jack and broiled open face to melt it, with or without jalapenos, then sliced and served like a pizza) and green-corn tamales. I was eating them in the seventies when I lived in Tucson, working for the L-5 Society, before most people had ever heard of them.

[Update a few minutes later]

I see that Prudence Paine is amused at the ignorance as well. Though I take issue with her denigration of them. They are excellent, and better than most Mexican dishes, in my opinion. I suspect her antipathy toward them is based on a misplaced fear of fat. When I used to eat them in Tucson, they were fried in lard, and that’s actually much healthier than low-fat, or vegetable oils. The bad thing about them is the flour tortilla itself, not the fact that it’s fried.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!