On Monday, Colorado State Treasurer Dave Young kicked off ‘National Small Business Week’ in Colorado.
“We are fortunate to live in a State where we have a large number of employees working for a small business,” he said, “because this helps our economy continue to grow…
“This National Small Business Week, we’re showing gratitude for our local homegrown businesses…”
Small businesses are a good thing, or so he implies.
Colorado is home to over 653,000 small businesses. And from what I can tell, they’re getting smaller every day.
Take, for example, the Pagosa Daily Post. According to owner and publisher Bill Hudson, the Daily Post originally had a staff of eight people, all seriously underpaid. Now it has a staff of one underpaid editor, and a few part-time contributors who are also seriously underpaid. (I speak from personal experience.)
Personally, I don’t see the attraction of Small Business. Why not have Big Businesses? ‘Big’ seems like the direction we want to shoot for, if we’re red-blooded Americans.
I mean, how can anyone hope to make America “Great Again” if all our businesses are “Small”?
To me, and to a lot of other people, the adjective “Great” means not only “Something everyone approves of”… which is, of course, a good thing…
…”Great” also mean “Large”. Right?
From the Merriam Webster Dictionary:
great; adjective
1. notably large in size : huge
2. large in number or measure : numerous
3. remarkable in magnitude, degree, or effectiveness
4. a generalized term of approval
I think we all want a Great USA.
So we might find it unsettling to have our election Colorado State Treasurer promoting “Small Businesses”. As he notes, in a tone of smug satisfaction, we live in a State where we have a large number of employees (which means a “Great” number) working for a small business (that is, a “Not-Great” business.)
Or am I misunderstanding how the world works?
Certain things ought to be small, obviously. Cell phones, for example. When I was a kid in the 1970s, Motorola came out with a cell phone that weighed 4 pounds. (If that wasn’t bad enough, the phone performed only one function: phone calls.)
Thankfully, Motorola was a big business, and later came out with the pocket-sized flip phone in 1989, much to everyone’s relief.
Small businesses were beneficiaries of these small phones, but it just goes to prove that a really big company can make really small things.
Small cars are another thing I’d like to see more of. I find big cars, and big pickup trucks, to be irritating, mostly because I don’t own one.
But small cars will likely be manufactured by Big Businesses.
When will we start celebrating ‘National Big Business Week’?
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.