Small rocket start-ups disqualified by SBA for Wuhan flu relief loans
Capitalism in space: Because of its arcane rules for defining what makes a small company, the Small Business Administration (SBA) has disqualified hundreds of small rocket start-ups from relief loans being issued to help companies whose business has been suspended due to the government-imposed shut downs due to Wuhan flu.
[Space industry groups] claim that hundreds of U.S. startups have been disqualified from loan programs — created under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and the Paycheck Protection Program — because of the way the SBA defines “small business.”
Many startups are funded by venture capital firms that typically invest in a portfolio of companies. To be eligible for the SBA loan program a business has to have fewer than 500 employees. When defining a small business, the SBA applies an “affiliation rule,” requiring companies to include in their worker count all the employees of companies with which they are “affiliated.” That rule requires venture-backed startups to aggregate the employees of all the unrelated companies in which their investors have equity positions, pushing many beyond the 500-employee threshold.
According to the industry groups, 98 percent of U.S. startups have fewer than 100 employees.
In other words, the SBA counts the employees of the venture capital firms as part of the company, when all they are essentially are investors. The start-up itself generally has far less than 100 people employed.
What really has to happen is to shut down the government shut downs. The government has got to get out of the way, and allow freedom to function again. Sadly, I do not see that ever happening, which means that many of these companies will fail, not because they couldn’t get it done but because our fascist new government rulers killed them.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Capitalism in space: Because of its arcane rules for defining what makes a small company, the Small Business Administration (SBA) has disqualified hundreds of small rocket start-ups from relief loans being issued to help companies whose business has been suspended due to the government-imposed shut downs due to Wuhan flu.
[Space industry groups] claim that hundreds of U.S. startups have been disqualified from loan programs — created under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and the Paycheck Protection Program — because of the way the SBA defines “small business.”
Many startups are funded by venture capital firms that typically invest in a portfolio of companies. To be eligible for the SBA loan program a business has to have fewer than 500 employees. When defining a small business, the SBA applies an “affiliation rule,” requiring companies to include in their worker count all the employees of companies with which they are “affiliated.” That rule requires venture-backed startups to aggregate the employees of all the unrelated companies in which their investors have equity positions, pushing many beyond the 500-employee threshold.
According to the industry groups, 98 percent of U.S. startups have fewer than 100 employees.
In other words, the SBA counts the employees of the venture capital firms as part of the company, when all they are essentially are investors. The start-up itself generally has far less than 100 people employed.
What really has to happen is to shut down the government shut downs. The government has got to get out of the way, and allow freedom to function again. Sadly, I do not see that ever happening, which means that many of these companies will fail, not because they couldn’t get it done but because our fascist new government rulers killed them.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Robert wrote: “What really has to happen is to shut down the government shut downs. The government has got to get out of the way, and allow freedom to function again.”
Beyond the question of freedom, a nation cannot bail-out its way to prosperity. Prosperity only comes from productivity, not the redistribution of what little wealth is generated by the few who are productive. Redistribution of wealth implies poverty that a country cannot solve by getting the impoverished to be productive.
These companies are part of that productivity and future prosperity.