As tough as U.S. small-business owners have it these days, there's plenty of evidence that businesses elsewhere have it worse. Take a look at this interesting BBC article about how even that British mainstay--the pub--is being eviscerated by the economy.
Apparently, 2,000 pubs in Britain have closed in the last 12 months. While two or three pubs closed a week in 2005, today that's up to 39.
It's not just because wary consumers are staying home and getting their booze from supermarkets. British pubs have also had to contend with a rising beer tax. The owner of the pub profiled in the story also complains about heavy regulations:
It is regulation rather than tax which has caused the Bull's Head the most problems, he says.
As an isolated country pub off the main sewerage line, it has had to install ever more sophisticated treatment facilities to meet ever higher demands for the purity of effluent it is permitted to pump to the treatment works.
This only affects country pubs. And there are many other rules the small business has to comply with, all coming at a cost for a pub which only serves a handful of locals.
"So many British institutions will disappear because of all this legislation," he says.
As I recently wrote, most other countries have much harsher regulations on starting and running businesses than exist in the US. That's a fact in which American business owners can take some solace.
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