Insulted? Yes I am.
President Obama's recent comments alluding to the federal government's role in building companies is way off base.
My career has been the field of life-support medical devices, begun in 1965. I joined an existing company in 1965 that was started in 1961 and grew of it's own accord.
After 10 years, I left to start my own company which was built from the ground up. Starting with 2 people, we grew to over 100 employees by 2008 when the company was sold.
We used no local, state or federal loans. We did borrow from private banks.
We leased a building built by a private developer in an area zoned as industrial. Our lease payments covered the considerable property taxes levied by local and state government that increased year-by-year.
The developer built and paid for the roads.
The privately built roads linked to city and county roads paid for with local tax revenues collected on gasoline sales. Those roads linked to the interstate highways paid for with the federal tax revenues on gasoline sales.
We consumed electricity from a privately owned power company fortunate enough to be "permitted" by various government agencies to build power plants and connect through the privately owned electrical grid. The cost of our electricity had a considerable amount of local, state and federal "fees" and taxes.
We bought parts and materials from the U.S.A. and all over the world from private companies. Various items were subject to "duties" and custom processing fees paid to the federal government.
We bought machining and other equipment needed to manufacture our products. These added to the net worth of the company, hence, increased our property tax. We also had an annual inventory tax on the value of stock we had on hand end-of-year.
We paid our employees appropriate wages, provided health care and 401(k) contributions. In addition, we paid for unemployment insurance, FICA, etc.
Most of the employees were there for a long time when the company was sold.
I'm proud of the fact that a few of the machinists we hired and trained on CNC equipment founded their own business to provide machined parts we needed at a lower cost than we could make them. They borrowed private funds as a start-up and bought newer, more productive CNCs.
Where is everything today? The ACA has put a dampener on the medical industry. Hospitals, our primary customer, do not know what the Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement rates will be in the future. They have essentially frozen investments in new care facilities.
My old company is down to ~50 employees.
I'm sorry, but government did not help us build a company, we paid our way as we went along, but now, it has almost destroyed it.
As an addendum, the FDA began to oversee the medical device industry in 1976. Prior to that, we built what doctors and clinicians told us they needed. After 1976, to introduce a new device required it to be "substantially equivalent" to previously marketed devices.
This month, the FDA is having a conference (I was invited) to discuss why there hasn't been more innovation in the development of new devices.
President Obama's recent comments alluding to the federal government's role in building companies is way off base.
My career has been the field of life-support medical devices, begun in 1965. I joined an existing company in 1965 that was started in 1961 and grew of it's own accord.
After 10 years, I left to start my own company which was built from the ground up. Starting with 2 people, we grew to over 100 employees by 2008 when the company was sold.
We used no local, state or federal loans. We did borrow from private banks.
We leased a building built by a private developer in an area zoned as industrial. Our lease payments covered the considerable property taxes levied by local and state government that increased year-by-year.
The developer built and paid for the roads.
The privately built roads linked to city and county roads paid for with local tax revenues collected on gasoline sales. Those roads linked to the interstate highways paid for with the federal tax revenues on gasoline sales.
We consumed electricity from a privately owned power company fortunate enough to be "permitted" by various government agencies to build power plants and connect through the privately owned electrical grid. The cost of our electricity had a considerable amount of local, state and federal "fees" and taxes.
We bought parts and materials from the U.S.A. and all over the world from private companies. Various items were subject to "duties" and custom processing fees paid to the federal government.
We bought machining and other equipment needed to manufacture our products. These added to the net worth of the company, hence, increased our property tax. We also had an annual inventory tax on the value of stock we had on hand end-of-year.
We paid our employees appropriate wages, provided health care and 401(k) contributions. In addition, we paid for unemployment insurance, FICA, etc.
Most of the employees were there for a long time when the company was sold.
I'm proud of the fact that a few of the machinists we hired and trained on CNC equipment founded their own business to provide machined parts we needed at a lower cost than we could make them. They borrowed private funds as a start-up and bought newer, more productive CNCs.
Where is everything today? The ACA has put a dampener on the medical industry. Hospitals, our primary customer, do not know what the Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement rates will be in the future. They have essentially frozen investments in new care facilities.
My old company is down to ~50 employees.
I'm sorry, but government did not help us build a company, we paid our way as we went along, but now, it has almost destroyed it.
As an addendum, the FDA began to oversee the medical device industry in 1976. Prior to that, we built what doctors and clinicians told us they needed. After 1976, to introduce a new device required it to be "substantially equivalent" to previously marketed devices.
This month, the FDA is having a conference (I was invited) to discuss why there hasn't been more innovation in the development of new devices.
