Forget it, kid!

I hate lemonade and never stop at sidewalk lemonade stands, no matter how cute the kids are, although plenty of people, far more generous than I am, do. I should make clear that I admire their budding entrepreneur spirit and, if they're selling cookies, I'm in. If you like that sort of thing, buying home-baked cookies or lemonade from kids on the street, get this.

Last week a couple of 13-year-old boys, Andrew and Kevin, met with great success, to the tune of $120, selling home-made sweets in a New Castle, New York park. Deciding to build on their initial gain, they expanded their menu to include Gatorade and water for the second day of business. Unfortunately, a man named Michael Wolfensohn happened to pass by....

He quickly pulled out his cell phone and called the cops to report the reprobates for operating their cookie stand without a license. The police soon arrived and shut down the dangerous baked goods operation. "All vendors selling on town property have to have a license, whether it's boys selling baked goods or a hot dog vendor," Wolfensohn said proudly afterward...  

Thank you, Mr. Wolfensohn, for teaching those boys a lesson! The next time Andrew and Kevin decide to sell frigging anything in the park, they will take out the necessary permit that requires a $1,000,000 certificate of insurance and, way better for the town coffers, pay the fee of $150 for every two hours they are in business.

It won't be long before only virtual reality kids will be able to sell lemonade.

Here's the whole article, written with a well-deserved splash of sarcasm.

But, and that's a big but, lemonade stands aren't the only small businesses that have to pay a lot of money to various levels of government before they can even earn their first $1 ~ for no particular reason other than to enrich and grow the government.

Businesses are often successful because they are providing a very narrowly defined product or service. Intricate African-style braiding is one of those services. Braiding salons began to popping up in inner city neighborhoods a few years ago and now, of course, they have attracted the attention of government regulators and special interests, in this case, the cosmetic art profession. 

It's difficult to see why braiders will be required to pay God knows how much money, and take 300 hours of classes, to obtain a license except for the profit of licensing agency and the protection of the established cosmetic lobby.

The Cato Institute makes an interesting point about what Chris Edwards calls political entrepreneurship, those in business who both grow and protect their companies with government money and not-to-be-admired relationships.

Edwards calls them Tools of the State.

John Stossel, as usual, nails it.

Cookies for Sale ~ $1.50, $1.00 or $.50 ~ depending on the color of your skin

A couple of years ago the conservative club at Bucknell held an Affirmative Action bake sale, using race-based pricing that allowed Latino and Black students to pay considerably less than Caucasian and Asian students for cookies and brownies. The reactions of the students buying the goodies varied from disbelief to embarrassment, making the intended point that most people just want equal opportunity and aren't comfortable reaching their goals by slipping in under the fence.

John Stossel, the libertarian journalist who recently moved from ABC News to the Fox Business channel, held his own bake sale last week with similar results. He discusses the issue of Affirmative Action with Bill O'Reilly:




The Wesleyan University admissions office reacted in a similar way after a conservative student group on campus held yet another Affirmative Active bake sale ~ denying that Wesleyan follows an affirmative action policy when deciding which prospective students should be invited to attend the school. I find it interesting that this very elite, by any definition of the word, university felt the need to disavow any proclivity to follow affirmative action, dare I say, standards. The Wesleyan faculty, on the other hand, felt no need to distance the school from affirmative action.

Wesleyan Faculty Endorse Affirmative Action - By Mytheos Holt - Phi Beta Cons - National Review Online

If only the proponents of affirmative action would get serious (and honest) about solving the real civil rights issue of our time ~ the failure of our public school system ~ affirmative action would be beside the point.