MATT YGLESIAS MAKES A SHOCKING DISCOVERY: Starting a Business Is a Huge Pain: I’ve been to three offices, filed five forms, spent $200, lost a day of work—and I’m not even close to getting the simple license I need.

As reader Darrin Moore emails, “America’s economy isn’t failing because there are too many people trying hard to make a profit, it’s failing because the government makes it too hard for people to make a profit.”

UPDATE: IowaHawk: “Perhaps instead of starting a small business, young Matt should have taken the time-honored liberal approach and started a BIG business. Those rules are simpler: (1) come up with idiotic idea, (2) give large wads of cash to a politician, (3) reap ginormormous government contract. Bob Menendez is waiting to take your call, Matt.”