Carl Schramm, who heads America’s top entrepreneurial think tank, the Kauffman Foundation, has a stunningly good insight into what causes an economy to grow. Growth, he says, is directly correlated to startups that get big. I interviewed Schramm onstage last week at a Churchill Club event at Microsoft’s Silicon campus in Mountain View.Emphasis in the original.
Schramm said:“The single most important contributor to a nation’s economic growth is the number of startups that grow to a billion dollars in revenue within 20 years.”Schramm says the U.S. economy, given its large size, needs to spawn something like 75 to 125 billion-dollar babies per year to feed the country’s post World War II rate of growth. Faster growth requires even more successful startups.
Facing economic Armageddon and desperate for new startups run by hyper-ambitious people to pay for our social services, we're on the verge of legalizing a drug that strips you of your ambition and drive.
Doesn't this mean the supporters will be too apathetic to get out and vote.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to dissent here. Do you really think the number of potheads is going to go up if marijuana is legalized? I mean in significant numbers. I might be wrong, but I think not.
ReplyDeleteOf course, your larger point stands. Pot legalization is not going to even help get us out of our financial mess.
Well hey, isn't pot growing already a billion-dollar industry in California? That's one!
ReplyDeleteFight evil. Fight it in any form. Fight it no matter what the odds.
ReplyDeleteYes, pot use is endemic and hip. So what? It's also wrong and destructive. Giving up in the face of evil is not the solution to anything.
I've seen drug use up close and personal in my family. I've seen what everything from pot to cocaine to heroin does to a person. Giving in just because most people in 2010 America have given in isn't the answer.
Fight evil.
In all seriousness, I am not saying that pot smoking is good.
ReplyDeleteI am saying that the "war on drugs" is not accomplishing its stated purpose. And doing the same unworkable thing over and over is just going to cost more, throw more people in prison, corrupt more cops, give the government more scope to abuse their power, and ultimately accomplish nothing.
If you disagree, then why wouldn't it be a good idea to bring back Prohibition? I've had family members and friends drink themselves out of jobs, out of marriages, and into early graves, and yet somehow having alcohol be legal hasn't destroyed civilization.
Tim, maybe a first for my participation on this blog, but I'm closer to your position here than that of this outfit's proprietor. There are terrible downsides no matter what we do, but our current course seems worse than others I could imagine.
ReplyDeleteThe latest poll numbers seem to imply that support for the proposition is waning.
ReplyDeleteOf all places, the Colbert Report had a very thoughtful discussion on Pot legalization between Joseph Califano and Gary Johnson. I have to I found the anti-legalization arguments persuading.
I see KT's larger point about fighting evil, and the only real question then is can the destructive aspects of drugs be more effectively addressed through legalization than with the current situation. Clearly the war on drugs has been completely ineffective, just as prohibition made many, although not all, things worse. But just because prohibition made things worse doesn't mean that legalization improves the situation.
An interesting parallel is that the driving force behind ending prohibition was to supplement tax revenue during the depression. Income tax was created at the beginning of prohibition to replace the revenue that would be lost from taxes on liquor sales. Because business leaders hated income tax, they pushed hard for a repeal of prohibition so that the government could go back to funding itself on taxing liquor sales. Of course things didn't work out as planned, since the income tax never went away. So for California to legalize pot for the tax revenue is an idea from the time of prohibition.
Tim and Jeff - bringing people together in a judgment-free environment is what the 'Post is all about.
ReplyDelete(insert mumbled, inaudible epithets against anyone who even vaguely disagrees with me here)
:-)