Gene Simmons on The Challenges Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses Face

"I want to start a business, so I go and I borrow and get myself deeply in debt. I'm going to make 'popcorn farts' -- that's going to be my product. I have to pay rent or buy a building. I'm on the hook for that. I have to hire people, I have to pay their salaries, worry about their retirement plans and, in case one gets pregnant, I have to worry about the pregnancy plan; I have to pay for their vacations and overtime. Then, I have to buy equipment and insure the place.


"Finally I make the first popcorn fart. It costs me a dollar to make, that's the cost of goods, and if I'm lucky I can get $1.40 to $1.50 for it. The store, the distributor and everybody else will make much more than I do, and all they do is sell it. Everybody else gets paid first, if there's a profit I get paid last. If the business goes under, I am fully on the hook for it. And, after I make my first dollar, I have to give 50% to the government if I'm lucky. After that, if I want to leave it to my heirs I get beaten up again. At what point do they just simply come clean and say, 'I have a gun to your head, give me your money.' The capitalist system is not in good shape. The American dream is not what it used to be, and that is why the people who become high-net-worth individuals have to be much more diligent that they ever have been before."