les pensées insouciantes

The U.S. House of Representatives this week passed a variety of measures intended to make it easier for small businesses to raise money. The most notable of the bills, which have had wide bipartisan support, would create an SEC exemption for crowdfunding.

The crowdfunding bill, called the Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act, would allow companies to give out equity stakes in exchange for investments of up to $2 million.

The stakes wouldn’t count against the SEC’s famous 500-shareholder rule. And individual investors would be capped at putting in $10,000 or 10 percent of their annual income.

This is very exciting.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Patrick McHenry [R-NC10], passed 407-17, with 9 not voting.

You can view the bill here.

Just For Reference™, the 17 Naye votes, all Democrats, were:

Georgia:

GA-5  Lewis, John [D]

Illinois:

IL-9  Schakowsky, Janice [D]

Maryland:

MD-4 Edwards, Donna [D]

MD-7 Cummings, Elijah [D]

Massachusetts:

MA-1 Olver, John [D]

MA-6 Tierney, John [D]

MA-7 Markey, Edward [D]

MA-8 Capuano, Michael [D]

MA-9 Lynch, Stephen [D]

Michigan:

MI-5 Kildee, Dale [D]

MI-15 Dingell, John [D]

New York:

NY-5 Ackerman, Gary [D]

North Carolina:

NC-1 Butterfield, George [D]

NC-4 Price, David [D]

NC-12 Watt, Melvin [D]

NC-13 Miller, R. [D]

Ohio:

OH-10 Kucinich, Dennis [D]

The bill now has to pass the Senate before being signed into law.

(Source: allthingsd.com)

I mostly consider myself a libertarian and I was inspired to create the infographic out of a general frustration with the current economic environment. While I don’t solely blame President Obama for this, I do believe his policies have lengthened (and in many ways worsened) this downturn. Although the infographic is implicitly critical of President Obama, I wanted to avoid opinions and evaluate the hard numbers set against statements and promises he has made in the past.

— Web designer and developer John Ekdahl

Been making the rounds.

Empirically, pretty damning.

Recall:

If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.

— Barack Obama, 2009

Just For Reference™

Click through for the high-res version.

(Source: The Atlantic)

As I’ve been saying in various conversations with people for the last 6 months or so, my biggest concern regarding a recovery in job growth is this:

The economy has been able to grow even without adding workers because employers have found ways to accomplish more with fewer workers. Productivity grew at a robust rate of 8.1 percent in the third quarter of 2009, the most recent data available.

My thought is that continued high productivity numbers will keep many companies from hiring en masse. Output is up so much with current personnel. Why take on new salaries? And until consumers are back in force (Ed. - not anytime soon), the demand isn’t there to ramp up output through a new round of hiring.  CapEx spending will continue to be the next wave in the short term.

See the full article here for an analysis of the GDP numbers (they’re always revised down), a disclaimer on the effects of tighter inventory management, exports and the cheap dollar.