Which one to blame: caipirinhas or red tape?
"If Bill Gates had started Microsoft in a garage in Brazil, it would still be in the garage," says Eduardo Giannetti da Fonseca in a recent article published by The Economist. The article points to the fact that Brazilian entrepreneurs are more risk-averse than the ones in Russia and China.
That's a no-brainer, for instance, according to the Doing Business 2008 (and for full disclosure, the authors are just down the hall from me) it takes an astonishing amount of effort to start a new business in Brazil: 152 days and 18 different procedures. Thus, absolving caipirinhas, soccer, or other Brazilian passions from any culpability. Whew!
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In a country where resources are scarcer than in others it is only logical that you make sure that only those that have sufficient drive and conviction in their ideas get theirs… and in this sense “152 days and 18 different procedures” might be a reasonable hurdle to use as a drive and conviction rating instrument… want to loosen it?…bring it down to 146 and 16… need to tight it up because of too many failures in pursuing an easy dream? increase it to 160 and 19!
Honestly I have never ever seen a good project not realized because of these hurdles… especially since there frequently are ways of expediting! I take bets that the 152 and18 would not have stopped Bill Gates!
And talking about duration, how long does it take a normal creditor to build up a credit rating that does not have him subsidizing the non-payment of others?
Posted by: Per Kurowski | Mar 31, 2008 11:28:12 AM