In 2005 a record number of Americans started companies. Here's why becoming your own boss has become a national obsession.

Once upon a time, small business was seen solely as the domain of idiosyncratic outsiders, willing to forgo the security of corporate life to venture out on their own. But today entrepreneurs are America's role models. Almost everyone wants to own a business

- from college students, who are signing up for entrepreneurial courses in record numbers; to those over age 65, who are forming more companies every year; to recent immigrants, who in 2005 started 25% more companies per capita than native-born citizens did.

We are in the midst of the largest entrepreneurial surge this country has ever seen. According to Small Business Administration projections, nearly 672,000 new companies with employees were created in 2005. That is the biggest business birthrate in U.S. history: 30,000 more startups than in 2004, and 12% more than at the height of dot-comhysteria in 1996.

And the trend shows no sign of abating. The Bureau of Labour Statistics found that more businesses were created in the first quarter of 2006 than during the same period the previous year. Not only are more Americans launching small businesses, but most others are dreaming about it: Sixty-six percent of respondents in a 2006 Yahoo Small Business survey said they wanted to start a company someday; 37% of those said they hoped to do so within the next five years.

"It's such a huge market," says Gourab Nanda, 34, who started MyBusinessAssistant.com last year to provide virtual business-management solutions to small companies. "All you have to do is identify your customers, provide the services, and keep prices low." Potential customers among new business owners can be found almost anywhere. That's because the current entrepreneurial boom is not only larger than that of the mid-1990s, but also

more diverse. Everyone is partaking of this surge - women, minorities, immigrants, teenagers, and corporate refugees alike.

But the diversity is more than demographic; it extends to the companies themselves. The last startup expansion was fuelled mostly by technology firms. While plenty of those are still being launched, the number of new service companies - which include tech firms - fell by nearly 14% from 1996 to 2005. Meanwhile, some old-school sectors are enjoying rapid growth. Since 1996 the number of construction startups has jumped 7%,  and manufacturing has grown by a remarkable 43%.

Entrepreneurs don't just constitute a larger portion of our workforce; they also contribute alarger share of tax revenue. The owners and partners of privately held companies pay more than 54% of all individual income taxes. And on personal tax returns, more than 37% of individuals in the highest tax bracket are business owners. Meanwhile, the majority of business tax returns are now filed by small businesses; 60% of all corporate tax returns are now from S-corporations. From 1980 to 2005, the number of S-corporations, farms, sole proprietorships, and partnerships filing business returns grew by 572%, to 3.7 million.

Entrepreneurship remains a risky endeavour. And yet it's arguably less risky to create a business now than ever before. A half-decade of rock-bottom interest rates has made it easier and cheaper for new entrepreneurs to borrow startup funds. Meanwhile, venturecapital funds and other private equity investors are once again pouring money into young companies.

At the same time, the perks that corporate America once promised have lost most of their allure. Job security? Between 70,000 and 80,000 corporate employees are laid off every month, about 30,000 more than just six years ago. If the risks of starting a business are lower and the rewards of staying at a corporate job have also fallen, then it's no wonder that more Americans are turning to entrepreneurship.

Robert Fairlie, an economist at the University of California at Santa Cruz, says that the recent fluctuations of the labour market may have provided another spark. Many recently downsized tech professionals, facing a tough job environment, have turned to entrepreneurship, he says. But even though the trend is back toward low unemployment, that isn't depressing startup rates. Today's strong labour economy may make risk-takingeasier, because an entrepreneur can more easily find a job if her venture fails.

If the nation's love affair with entrepreneurship continues, then we are in for a bright future. Despite their competitive reputations, entrepreneurs are more likely to get involved in their communities, through service on elected and appointed boards and other types of volunteer work. And they lead the nation in charitable donations. According to a study from Bank of America and Indiana University comparing wealthy individuals from various backgrounds, those whose money came from entrepreneurial activity donated an average of $232,206 in 2005. That's more than twice the amount given by the next highest group, those with inherited wealth. They averaged only $109,745

A country with more small businesses is, by and large, a more innovative country. Indeed, innovative entrepreneurs may help keep the country afloat in a time of global uncertainty. Even as emerging overseas economies, including India's and China's, become more competitive, no other country can rival America's appetite for entrepreneurialexperimentation. "That's a great thing about America, that our culture accepts this risk and accepts people who try new things," legendary computer entrepreneur Michael Dell, chairman of Dell, said in a recent interview. "Many nations have capital, many nations have smart people, but no nation really compares to the U.S. in terms of its willingness to accept risk takers in society."

Task 1. Answer the following questions:

1. Why do so many Americans want to be entrepreneurs?

2. In what areas are small businesses primarily launched?

3. What share of the US tax revenue do business owners contribute?

4. Is it easy to borrow startup funds now?

 

 

Task 2. Is Russia ever going to see a similar entrepreneurial surge as in the USA? Give a free translation of this article, using the following expressions:

To debureaucratise the economy, IBRD, market movement, to achieve a budget surplus, to service one’s debt obligations, export surplus, economic takeoff, ubiquitous bureaucracy, agreements at various levels, to put newcomers in a worse position, loan collateral, effective banking system, legal recourse, unbalanced dependency, job retention, on a per capita basis.