there's a common meme- I've seen it here and on wing-nut sites

[cali]

that regulations of all kinds- EPA, Food Safety, etc, hurt small business more than large corporations. Does anyone have any factual information about this? I'm exceedingly dubious of these claims.

[Drale]

1. Its complete bullshit

lack of available credit and lack of customers is what hurts small businesses, and both are the fault of large corporations. So the point is the large corporations are what hurt small businesses.

[lame54]

2. nice...

good way to sum it up

the growth of Walmart = the death of small business's

[Ohio Joe]

15. Correct - nt

[Prism]

3. I think liberals may have stories like this in mind:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/food/stew/chi-local-ice-cream-makers-could-be-shut-down-by-state-20110805,0,477342.story

A small ice cream vendor is crushed beneath the weight of regulation and bureaucracy.

It's an interesting read, and I can understand both sides. On the one hand, you don't want regulatory costs to be prohibitive for starts ups. But then, we have food safety standards for a reason.

[girl gone mad]

4. It seems like the biggest meme DU and wing-nut sites have in common..

is 24/7 bashing liberals.

Just today, new threads bashing Nader, Michael Moore, Bill Maher..

[Bandit]

7. Freepers are just too darn easy to bash

Liberals are a little more difficult because they often make absolute sense.. You don't have to defend your own mistakes if you can bash someone else...

[cali]

16. Nader is not a liberal. Maher is a Libertarian- by his own words

Love Moore.

[customerserviceguy]

5. It might be true

Many large corps manage to get their people in the regulatory agencies, which then create policies that benefit large businesses over small ones, so I do think there's some credibility to that assertation, probably more in some industries than others.

[Bandit]

6. EPA has indeed caused many a heartburn for some small business'

EPA has designated a large portion of the land as wetlands even though for ten months a year that land is completely dry.. It is almost impossible to get permits to build on wetlands.. This is one of the main items of contention plus throw in an eagle nest or Marbled Merlet nesting area and your own private property becomes unusable...

[Bigmack]

9. I look at it this way....

Building on a wetland is just begging for flooding problems... and the taxpayer picks up the tab for the damage to public property nearby. Wetlands are "shock absorbers" for wet times.

Eagle nest? Shit, a lot of things make your property worth less... or even worthless. If a Wal-Mart opens and it borders your place, you are kinda screwed.

To me, it's like a restaurant opening on a back street and claiming it's regulations about parking that keep the restaurant from making it big!

[On the Road]

8. I Doubt It's Possible to Generalize

For one thing, many regulations only apply to employers with more than a certain number of employees.

So if small business is disproportionately affected, it is likely to be those that have 400 employees but still fall under the categorization of "small business."

[IndyPragmatist]

10. In many cases, the regulations are to protect the corporations

Many regulations are created by corporations to keep small businesses out of the game. The article linked on another post (http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/food/stew/chi-local-ice-cream-makers-could-be-shut-down-by-state-20110805,0,477342.story) is a perfect example.

This new dairy license was pushed by the larger ice-cream makers because the small craft ice cream makers are cutting into their profits. By requiring licenses (which often cost a heck of a lot of money and time to obtain) they are ensuring that small businesses aren't able to compete.

Beer is another example. Anheiser Busch was one of the biggest advocates for stricter brewing laws. Why? Because the laws cost a fair amount of money. AB has no problem making a one time payment to keep hundreds of microbrews out of business. A small brewer would never be able to pay for the commercial brewing license, thus allowing AB to control the market.

In Indiana, AB also pushed in the 90s for a law that prevented beer advertising through local television networks. By this, the only beer advertising could be done on cable or through the national headquarters of networks. The only time where the national networks control advertising is on the big programs (sports, prime-time tv), local networks control the advertising the rest of the time. AB had the money to advertise through the network heads, and other large cable networks, while the microbrews couldn't afford to buy a 30second spot during Seinfeld or Sunday football.

When regulations are pushed by corporate lobbyists, they usually are designed to hurt competition and screw over the little guy. While the corporations are to blame, so are the elected officials that accept these bribes to support the regulations.

[ixion]

13. exactly.

[Spike89]

11. Too generalized to be meaningful

There are sometimes good reasons that arguments can't be totally determined by facts. It is a fact that many regulations only kick in for businesses of a certain size (usually these are labor laws and are triggered by the number of employees on the payroll, or sometimes the value of the payroll). These certainly help small business compete with corporate foes. There are other regulations that are "equal" but often hurt a small business more. For instance, a small ready-mix company (an example from my in-laws) has to obey the same groundwater run-off regulations as the "big guys". That is equal, but the big guys have maybe 12 or more plants and can have engineers draw up a "universal" drainage solution. The plans cost, say $1 million dollars, and the implementation another $1 million.
Now in the above equal example, the small ready-mix operator is actually unlikely to actually pay $1 million for plans, instead they'll try and get by with paying about 1/2 that, but they're likely to end up paying at least the full $1 million for implementation. Assuming that their "cut-rate" plan works and they don't get sued and have to pay fines for an inadequate system, the small company is out $1.5-$1.75 million. The corporation spreads development cost over 12 plants (probably gets discounts on bulk material purchasing too) and ends up with a total per plant cost of less than $1.1 million and a better, probably more efficient system. In a low-margin, competitive business, the difference of $400,000-$650,000 is huge.
In short, some regulation hurts small business, some helps. Another set of factors that are extremely slippery and hard to quantify are primary and secondary benefits. Using the two examples above, you can quickly see how complex it becomes. For instance, a regulation requiring medical insurance for all companies with more than 400 employees has a primary benefit of ensuring that those employees have medical insurance, a secondary benefit is that smaller businesses are likely to also offer it in an effort to stay competitive. The law "helps" small business in that they are required to spend what the big guys do, but much of that advantage goes away because the small business will likely try and be competitive and they can't get as good rates/coverage for the same $$$.
Fortunately, the equalization also works somewhat in the other example. The primary benefit is cleaner water, which is probably a neutral fiscal benefit for both companies, but the small business is much more likely to be located in the same area as its owner, so in a sense, they are getting the secondary benefit of a cleaner hometown. The point is that there are tons of variables.
The real question is do we want our food supply to be safe, and is it worth losing some marginal small businesses to ensure that safety? Do we want the cheapest electric power, or do we want to make sure the dams and nuclear plants are safe? As with most questions, any answer that has no nuance is no answer at all.

[NashVegas]

12. Meme Back: EPA Hurts POLLUTING Businesses of All Kinds

I knew a family with a printing business who used to scream bloody murder about the EPA, because they got hit with major fines for dumping printing waste into a creek behind their business.

Mountains, rivers, all these resources belong to ALL of us, and we need to defend them against business interests, no matter what size, who wreck our natural resources.

[doc03]

14. I actually had a small businessman complain a couple

weeks ago about how (state of Ohio) regulations hurt him. He owns several small convenience stores, someone suggested he just level the one near here and build a new building rather than remodeling. He said he has been trying to do just that at another store and after 6 months the state of Ohio hasn't given him a go ahead yet. He said he has modified the blueprints at a cost of over $6000 so far and they just keep finding other changes.
I know another guy who is a paving contractor that attempted to build a new mechanics shop for his trucks and other equipment. Same story even though he had just one mechanic that would work there the state would require him to purchase another lot to put a $10000 septic system on and a handicap accessible restroom in the building. He dropped the idea of building the garage and built a storage rental building instead..

I see someone mentioned a small ice cream store. That reminds me of the one across the road from me, they made homemade ice cream there for about 60 years. They decided to close the business rather than spend the 10s of thousands of dollars to keep theirs in compliance with regulations.

[Ikonoklast]

17. What does the State of Ohio have to do with local building codes?

I'm not following this here.

[doc03]

18. I think the Ohio EPA enforces the federal and state laws for

sewage. The state may also enforce federal and state laws for health, safety and disabilities requirements. The one businessman singled out the state of Ohio in particular for some reason. We are in the country, I am not sure we have any (local) building codes. The question was if anyone has any heard how EPA and other regulations that hurt small business. I just answered the question, yes I have heard many small business people complain about regulations. Take the guy that had one employee that had to purchase extra ground to install a $10000 septic system and make the restroom accessible to handicapped when the public never sets foot in the building. That seems to be a unnecessary burden on the small business. Another is the ice cream store that operated for decades and they were required to put in a handicapped restroom for the public because they served food. Never had a problem for like 60 years. They just closed and 4 people lost their jobs.