Is our fourth of July Independence Day a celebration of our economic system?

Some people contend that it is our economic system that has enabled the USA to become so prosperous. Certainly it encourages taking risks to better oneself, and the benefits of those risks often benefit many people with more and better products and services, more jobs, advancing technologies, etc.

Other people believe that our economic systems makes it difficult for regular people to start and grow a business. According to the Small Business Administration approximately five percent of USA businesses fail every year. Most of these failures are small businesses.

Still other people could care less about small businesses. Large investors, and many people who just invest in stocks through their retirement funds, just want a good return on their investments. So they tend to favor large business.

But even in large businesses, some people find the way our economic system works disturbing. For example CEO salaries have increased 340 percent since 1990, while average worker’s wages increased only 36 percent. In 1980, CEO incomes were 42 times that of the average worker in a corporation. Now CEO incomes average 532 times more than their workers.

Most CEOs are employees. They didn’t start their corporations. They didn’t take the risks. They just work there. And sometimes they don’t even make the company profitable.

Many people see a problem in an economic system that produces such disparities among workers. But you can bet that CEO’s, members of boards of directors, and large investors don’t think it’s a problem. If they did, they would change it.

As a small business owner do you know how your target market members feel about our economic system? Or do you just assume that they feel the same as you do? If you’re not in the same social class as your target market, you’re probably wrong.

That’s why market segmentation is necessary. It reveals differences by social classes, lifestyles, and many other market segments. If you aren’t aware of those differences, you can make fatal marketing blunders.

So what do you think of our economic system. Is it the reason that you celebrate this fourth of July?

Leave a comment and let others know why you’re celebrating the fourth of July. And if you like this series of posts, let others know by submitting it to your favorite social networks. Buttons are provided below.

For the concluding post in this series, click below:
Why Are You Celebrating The Fourth of July Tonight?

Add to Onlywire

You can get a free trial of my automatic market segmentation program by completing the form below:

Posted 7-3-08: Are You Celebrating Our Economic System This
Fourth of July?

Bookmark It

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 7:23 am and is filed under Uncategorized.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.