I imagine state of current US court system qualifies as "special circumstances".

In other words, you understand the problem, you just reject your understanding of it.

P.S. Please tell us how monopoly regulation doesn't hurt microsoft with those billion-level fines, or how chemical directive didn't hurt manufacturers who had to invest into phasing out mercury, and countless other examples. Because both companies involved as well as commission agreed on the fact that it was in fact harmful - they just disagreed on whether benefits to the public were sufficient enough to offset it.

I have no idea which country you are talking about - though I suspect Liberia et al probably have no programs to help small business in the starting phase. Well, they do actually IIRC, but that's funded by foreign donors as a part of development aid.

On the other hand essentially entire EU has a wide-reaching support network for starting a small business. Right now, if I had a decent idea, I could walk to my local government office responsible for the subsidies, file the forms and likely walk away with several tens of thousands of euros of start-up money.

Their criteria for acceptance are basically a background check to see if you have money problems and a series of interviews to see if you have a decent understanding what you're getting into and how your business idea works. After that, I would get support from the local small business association (which is funded by both national government and EU) in everything from securing an office with reasonable rent to how to do accounting. There are several programs ongoing on EU level right now that do exactly that, plus the national level programs.

In fact the biggest complaint from the small business owners is usually that once the initial help package is used up, the "drop" in support tends to sink small business too used to having so much assistance, and as a result they are campaigning for various extensions to the start up aid. In addition they have significant other benefits, such as those in regard to taxation, employment costs and so on.

The thing with small business though, is that criteria you put on it, which tells us exactly where YOUR problem lies. You want a "replacement income" and you want it early. Fact is, many start-ups produce no profits for a long time, mainly because they are either breaking into existing market (see: the biggest problem small business faces today referenced by me earlier) or they are developing their initial product. As such, they will obviously be much less profitable than a salary of a good engineer/techie crowd that usually visits slashdot.

Which is why starting small business is hard even with the aid. And it's not the "lack of government support" or "overbearing regulation" or other bullshit that hurts BIG business and that it really likes to whine about. It's the massive competition from incumbents in mature markets where most of the small business operates that makes it so hard to start a business, which brings us to my initial point that you attempted to deny. The problem with starting a small business today is globalization and its effect on the markets.

That is easily proven false. Small business enjoys massive government assistance, including start money, tax breaks, freedom from much of the red tape with accounting that larger business has to deal with and so on.

In spite of all this, it's almost impossible to break into the market that is already controlled by globalized megacorps that can outprice you, outproduce you and out-R&D you.

If you were to remove this assitance, vast majority of small business would be dead within a year across Western countries, as large conglomerates would simply crush the small competition everywhere where they are present, leaving only the most niche places for small business to survive.

Switzerland comes to mind as one of the last bastions of it, as do Nordic countries, especially Iceland.

Attention span of many people on the internet is about two sentences. I took three to deliver the obvious caveat. I guess I can blame no one but myself :D

I agree with you, hence my last sentence and emphasis on "democratic society".

That is what various small business subsidies are for. In modern world, small business is already largely unviable without them due to effects of globalization on the economy and impact of large international conglomerates.

They do comply with them when they work in there. I have several friends who work for oil refinement industry who had to work there. They tell amazing stories of the hoops companies jump through to be able to operate in the Kingdom.

You seem to view "increased costs to customers" as a greater evil than "not obeying local laws".

I find your view downright appalling.

There are other choices than those two. Including choice of reducing usage of natural gas and oil in the first place because they become too costly.

I'm saying the exact opposite. It takes a warped mind to interpret my words in the exact opposite way that they are intended.

If you look at EU, it's choke full of examples of exact opposite of what you're claiming, and most of the examples that are actually like you're claiming are found on the national level.

Completely ok as long as these people do business in EU, as far as it pertains to business in EU. Same applies to all states, including US.

In other words, I think that some of the US approach to the same situation is over the top because it concerns business done outside US.

I have absolutely no problem for the same rules applying to one man operations and large business, so long as they are fair for consumers and states those consumers live in. In fact, one of the biggest problems in business/state relations today is that business tends to use the "but small business would suffer" in the same way that power hungry politicians use "think of the children". That is to circumvent the common good and allow them to profiteer at expense of everyone else.

In a democratic society, recourse becomes available after majority of population is informed of harm caused by the issue and pressure their representatives to change the law.

As a result, information and its presentation in mass media is important. Regardless of the fact that US is more of an oligarchy than democracy today.

Can't do it "yet". That's the important part. There's no demand for second service with same capabilities when first one delivers those already.

If first service is blocked, demand appears and within a short time, someone fills the void.