Strangling Russia

Russia needs lots of small businesses to open shop. Unfortunately, small businesses are opened by people without much money who can't afford to pay a lot of legal fees to figure out bureaucratic nightmares. But that's the situation in Russia. A maze of regulation is strangling their economy. Link. Excerpt:

[T]he reality of doing business in Russia is one of suffocating -- and at times surreal -- bureaucracy.

The biggest victims are smaller businesses, a sector economists say is even more important than the traditional mainstays, the oil and metals giants, if Russia is to rescue its spluttering growth and achieve lasting prosperity.

"There are lots of hassles that small businesses have to face in Russia on a daily basis," said John Litwack, lead economist with the World Bank in Moscow.

"I think that small and medium enterprises are key to dynamism in the economy in general ... (But Russia) is one of the only emerging market countries where we don't see real substantial increases in small businesses," he said.

Makes you wonder during these uncertain economic times: How much better would America's economy run without the federal Code of Federal Regulations, a monstrosity composed of 200 books that take up over 25 feet of shelf space? That's just the federal regs, mind you. Every state has its own set of rules and regulations, and munipalities have rules and ordinances of their own.