By Louis Avallone
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Our ecosystem is fragile. It can be as small as a drop of water or as large as our entire planet. In fact, the earth is an interconnection of many diverse and interdependent ecosystems that make up the whole. They form the basics of life, such as water, food and shelter. If our ecosystems are not protected, our planet cannot survive. In the rainforest, for example, merely losing one species of animal or plant can cause the loss of the entire rainforest and all its inhabitants.
This is often referred to as the “keystone species” concept because of the disproportionately large effect that a particular species has in its environment. This concept was developed in the late 1960s when it was discovered that the absence of starfish in the ocean ecosystem caused the remaining species in the area to compete with each other for limited resources. Within a year of the starfish’s removal from the study area, species diversity decreased from 15 to 8.
Another example is how sea otters control sea urchin populations. Sea urchins feed on kelp forests, and without sea otters feeding on sea urchins; there would not be enough kelp forests, which are used as a habitat for a variety of other species.
Or take the American alligator, once thought to be an undesirable nuisance. It was then hunted without limit, to the point of extinction. But with the absence of the alligator, there was a population explosion of gar, the alligator’s favorite food. Gar enjoyed eating all the game fish that people enjoyed catching, so then the fish population declined significantly. Once the alligator population was allowed to grow, so did the game fish, and the ecological balance was restored.
You see, entrepreneurs, and the American entrepreneurial spirit, much like the American alligators, are being hunted in our country, without limit, to the point of extinction. They are facing what scientists call “ecological extinction”, which is “the reduction of a species to such low abundance that, although it is still present in the community, it no longer interacts significantly with other species.”
This “ecological extinction” of entrepreneurs, and the American entrepreneurial spirit, is a natural result of historically high pollution levels that our country is experiencing, politically. These pollutants, such as class warfare, higher taxes, and increased government regulations, are toxic emissions in our environment.
Unfortunately, these pollutants do not naturally decompose, and their continued emission can only result in irreversible, functional damage to our ecosystem, crippling job creation by discouraging capital investments, while encouraging lower productivity (and thus lower wages) by penalizing higher wages (through higher taxes).
And if you are not sure if the policies of this White House is purposefully seeking the “ecological extinction” of entrepreneurs, and the American entrepreneurial spirit, by making the environment inhospitable to their economic survival, consider the following:
As of April 1, America now has the highest, jobs-killing corporate tax rate in the industrialized world. And did you know this administration has instituted 106 new regulatory rules that have added an estimated $46 billion per year in new costs for businesses?
Were you aware that by blocking the Keystone pipeline, and through choking off oil production under federal leases, that Obama has effectively, on his own accord, blocked nearly two million barrels per day of North American crude oil from being injected into the American economy, all as gas prices are reaching historically high levels?
Do you know that Obama wants to effectively double the tax rate on income from capital gains from the current 15% rate? This would reduce the incentive for domestic investment, but increase the incentive to move jobs and capital overseas.
These are a few important examples of why we need to preserve our ecosystem, and protect endangered species, like entrepreneurs, and the American entrepreneurial spirit, that are on the verge of extinction. It’s a different ecosystem that we’re protecting here…an ECO-nomic system, but the fundamental principles work the same as they do in nature.
Entrepreneurs, and the American entrepreneurial spirit, serve as a spark plug in our nation’s economic engine. They birth new ideas, like the iPhone, and start new companies. And that’s important because firms less than five years old have driven virtually all-new job growth in the U.S.
New firms, on the average, create three million jobs a year, and because of our growing population, we need three million brand new jobs every year, if everyone else is to keep their job, period.
So, when you discourage entrepreneurs from starting new companies, and thereby eliminate the breeding ground for the majority of these new jobs in the first place, we have an appalling, environmental disaster on our hands. If we don’t have new companies being created, we don’t create new wealth. Without new wealth, the country grows poorer.
We must act, before it’s too late. If we delay in removing the toxins of class warfare, higher taxes, and increased government regulations, then replenishing the population numbers of entrepreneurs could take decades. And if they become ecologically extinct, what species will replace them in our ECO-system? From where will those three million new jobs needed each year come from? (For you liberals, the answer is not “from the public sector”).
Yes, “going green” is now more important than ever. So, give a hoot. Don’t pollute. And save the entrepreneur. Our nation’s livelihood literally depends on it.