The Cost's of Doing Business

Today over at New Albany Confidential my good friend Roger Baylor questioned a concept that has plagued me for most of my adult life.

That being why do most individuals or entities in this country hesitate to take actions that are obvious to the welfare of their particular endeavor prior to heavy handed government involvement.

As I've eluded before, my experience base has primarily been in the transportation industry. For decades now trucking has been hammered by the public, insurance companies, the govenrment and its customer base about safety concerns.

Some of us saw the writing on the wall years ago and began formulating solutions to solve some of those issues on our own. Most did not and in more than a few cases when government finally stepped in the results were disasterous. Jobs, homes and lifetimes of work as well were and continue to be lost.

So now back to the base question of why. Why do we choose to wait to act until we are forced to?

As one who has twice attempted to go independent (and failed by the way) I understand that on a financial level it is a scary thing to try something contrary to what the competition is doing.

Our goals, to name a few, are to create a product that is marketable, keep the governmment off our backs, keep our employees, our customers, the general public, & our bankers resonably happy, and turn some semblance of a profit.

While that is an extremely tall order on any given day it is the world we strive to survive in. For the majority going out on that limb of change that disrupts the time honored ways of doing things is beyond their willingness to take a risk.

However the few that do move ahead of the curve usually find that the fears were more imagined than real. Sadly, much of the time their attempts while paying dividends, do not totally protect them from costs incrurred by the ultimate government intervention.

So my questions (and there is apparently no one answer to them) is how many business' must fail before the rest see the handwriting on the wall?

Why is there so much resistance to cleaning our own house as it were, when there is so much emperical evidence to prove that failure to do so is folly?

What is that defective gene within our societal DNA that resists change prior to the aforementioned governmental edict?

These quires apply not only to the restaurant/bar industry, but to trucking, rental properties, and most all else that one could name as well.

And for me at least,they remain unanswered.