Uh, I've already "made it" in Boston, Chicago and NYC. That tends to happen when your IQ is in the top 1% of the country. That's not me saying that, that's the standardized testing industry saying it. My biggest challenge is the boredom of having to deal with you unevolved allegedly "human" people surrounding me. Most of the time, I look at you all as a joke God is playing on me. But, you are good for taking the other side of my trades, so that makes us even.
Hey, man, why don't you go study up on the concept of "marginal" and then get back to me. Here's a hint. If your business is dependent upon "weather" maybe it's not a business in the modern sense of the word, but it's actually a farm (or a weather forecasting consultancy) masquerading as a business. No shame in that, but let's just be precise in our terminology. Obviously, I'm not saying to put every failed entrepreneur in jail, but let's not pretend that every failed entrepreneur was just a hair's breadth away from success, either.
Well far be it from me to dispute the "standardized testing industy." With such an impressive name I am sure they know what they are doing. Especially if someone as intelligent as you endorses them. I am somewhat shocked. I would think if you spent any time with them you would be disgusted as to how stupid they actually are. I agree. For those of us with superior intelligence, boredom can be a big problem. You might want to check out the guys living in grass huts. They have had centuries dealing with it. You don't have to go whole hog all in. You could start by taking a walk in Central Park and ask yourself if you would be happier if you owned it and could turn it into a mall.
They may not know what they are doing, but they know less what they are doing than the remainder of society. But, like Groucho, I am disgusted that the 1% would accept me as a member. Nearly every time I run through Central Park, my thoughts go to what I will do once I buy it to save NYC from its financial woes. I'll probably turn it into a real life Thunderdome and have bums fight to the death for my amusement. That seems like as good a use as any. If the bums are indebted, all the better. I'll pay off the creditors of the bum who loses. The winning bum is on his own.
My business is not farming, nor is it greatly dependent on weather. That is an example, but there are 1000's of other reasons that are completely out of an owners control that could cause the failure of a business. In a system where debtors go to jail, you would have little debt. That would basically mean that the only way to expand, or start a business would be to self-finance. That means that a very select few would be able to start businesses, which would in turn reduce competition greatly. I'm done with this stupid conversation because clearly you have no clue how devastating it would be to drastically reduce risk taking.
The problem with your conclusion is that we weren't originally taking about debt incurred for the purposes of starting a business, but debt incurred for the purposes of consumption. Do you understand the difference? If not, you might want to think about doing so, although, yes, I think that putting disincentives in place to dissuade the marginal entrepreneur wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Remember the "Simpsons" episode with Ned Flanders' "Leftorium"? Well, if that was started with a bank loan, I'm not sure it would have been a bad thing if he'd been denied that loan. Let's face facts, not everyone is cut out to start a business and we shouldn't pretend otherwise. And the idea that the more startups there are the more competition there is is superficial. Yes, if there are a ton of startups in an industry, there is more competition. Briefly. Then, reality sets in and the less competitive startups begin a price war, lowering prices until they reach marginal cost. That just reduces profit margins for everyone in the short term until those less competitive startups run out of money and fail. Businesses that are viable are perfectly capable of self-financing. The fact is, I want risk-taking to be prevalent in the economy, but I am not averse to discouraging risk-taking based on false premises.