With little taste for new spending programs, America has another option for creating jobs. It's called entrepreneurship, and polices that promote it can be a low-cost stimulus package that sparks innovation and creates tens of thousands of jobs.
The core idea is to build an army of entrepreneurs -- the people who take new ideas and move them from the garage (or the lab) to the marketplace as part of businesses that create jobs. Our studies at the Kauffman Foundation show that over the last three decades new businesses five years of age or younger have been responsible for virtually all of our economy's net new jobs. If our national mantra is "jobs, jobs, jobs," entrepreneurs are the ones who historically have delivered with a disproportionate share of the disruptive innovations that really drive growth. The automobile, the airplane, the computer revolutions were brought to market by startups, not established firms.
Our entrepreneurial stimulus package can begin by leveraging money we already spend, including $90 billion in federal research funding that goes to U.S. universities every year. These schools do outstanding work in training minds to explore new ideas and expand human knowledge. To create jobs for their grads, we also need universities to earn A+ grades for promoting entrepreneurship by helping faculty and students maximize the commercial success of their best ideas.
Some say universities' role is pure research, not its application. But universities aren't monasteries. If they accept taxpayer dollars for research, it's fair to expect the findings to be applied to real world needs in return -- and commercialization that scales ideas for mass benefit is the most powerful way to get that done.
Here are three ideas for getting the most from university-based research:
An entrepreneurial stimulus package also should include amended laws that open our country to entrepreneurial immigrants with the zeal to bring new innovation and growth to America. Studies show that immigrants account for a disproportionate share of successful high-tech startups, new enterprises generally, and patents. Yet, our immigration laws tend to drive them out when we should be pulling them in. Isn't it backwards to open our campuses and nurture the brightest young minds from abroad, only to cast them away just as they offer the fruits of that education in return? That's like planting vineyards only to uproot them when harvest time arrives.
Instead of shutting the door, what about revised rules that attach a green card to U.S. college diplomas handed to foreign students or make available a "jobs creator visa" for immigrants who start new businesses, invest in startups, and create jobs for Americans?
In political debate, some suggest that immigrants take jobs that Americans can do. But immigration rules that attract the entrepreneurial subset from abroad will create far more jobs than they displace. If just one in ten of foreign students and the highly skilled individuals who now aspire for H1-B visas launch a U.S. business and hire a worker, our economy gains 100,000 new jobs. And, based on our research at the Kauffman Foundation, one of ten is a conservative goal. This type of targeted immigration reform is really a jobs program for Americans -- and one that doesn't require new spending.
Entrepreneurial stimulus won't fix the economy by itself or bring back all 8 million jobs that we've lost. Other policy adjustments may well be required. But new ideas, innovation, and the businesses that commercialize them are surely part of the answer. It takes entrepreneurs to make that happen, and America should embrace the policies to assist them.
Fortunately, there are still people out there looking at the global picture; and the start-up entrepreneur is therefore not entierely without hope. Check it out: eSolve Capital or SO Ventures
This article was written before the economy crashed, http://www.american.com/archive/2008/july-august-magazine-contents/the-growth-solution
401ks. The author wants to open the border, have unlimited immigration, end social programs and cut Corporate taxes .
I kid you not, the author says everyone one will be so rich we will not need these social programs.
LOL http://www.fpri.org/enotes/200912.litan.innovationworldeconomy.html
After 2 years of unemployment, we found out that the US gov't has put a lien on our house, which didn't allow us to sell it and it has been handed over to the mortgage company. Why was there a lien? A company that my husband worked for, NOT OWNED, worked for, went bankrupt. The IRS never went after the owners but my husband, as an employee, was deemed responsible for all payroll related debts of the company.
So, the owners, who have money still, are let off scott free. We who had very little money left, lost everything!! We contacted the IRS and the White House, and basically, we were told to contact HUD for housing!! HUD!!
They take our house away for debts that were not ours and then tell us to go live in a slum somewhere.
Yes, we contacted lawyers. Basically, they told us to get a job first and then they would help us. Get a job. How?? It's not from lack of effort.
So, now, we have no money and soon, no home. Thank you, US government. May all IRS employees feel the pain that they have caused others.
Please, HuffPo, stop farming out your site to glorified corporate lobbyists who want their cheap labor agenda. H-1B is called the offshore outsourcing visa because it facilitates OFFSHORE OUTSOURCING.
If you want startups, fund AMERICANS, if you want jobs, require production of SCALE (manufacturing), be done in America to obtain funding! If you want patents, HIRE AMERICANS. If you want innovation, FUND AMERICANS.
Jesus, there are hundreds of thousands of extremely qualified, advanced skill ed Americans out of a job. Age discrimination is rampant in tech, starting at age 35! Over 50% of women engineers drop out of the field due to discrimination. Black engineers need jobs in droves, so do Hispanics. How odious to enable discrimination, global labor arbitrage at all levels when the economy desperately needs U.S. workers to not only get jobs, but create jobs. Americans ARE Entrepreneurs.
This is a supply side solution to a demand side problem. The real problem is that Americans haven't seen the last thirty years of productivity increases in their pocketbook in the form of wages.
Until they do , you can forget about moving toward 'recovery' whatever that is.
All that it does is make a few investors and top execs wealthy, while the day to day benefit of additional jobs and income goes overseas in the race to the bottom of the wage scale.
HB-1 is just a phony excuse to cut wages. There is no shortage of skilled, entrepreneurial workers in the U.S., just a shortage of companies willing to pay market wages when they can get people cheaper from somewhere else and pocket the difference.
I get tired of 35 years of whining by American companies that there aren't enough people to do what they want and that Americans need more training. Every area that Americans retrained for over the years has since been outsourced.
American companies think that the laws of economics only are there to work on their behalf. They are glad to cut wages when they think there is a large supply of labor to draw on. But when they cut to the point where no American can afford to work there anymore, they have to get special deals, like outsourcing and HB-1.
Perhaps it is a good thing we don't attach a green card to a diploma. Plenty of our own college graduates are left looking for work and if visa holders stayed they would just have more competition for the same limited pool of jobs.
Maybe not such a good idea to try to keep immigrants here right now just because they have a degree. Visa holders with degrees frequently earn less than ctizens and tend to drive down wages overall. We need wages going up, not down or flat..