The old-fashioned lemonade stand must comply with dozens of ordinances. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts frowns upon the ramshackle wooden stands set upon the lawn that Rockwell would paint. All mobile food units must also display the owner's name in letters not smaller than three inches on the left and right sides. It isn't only the young who are overwhelmed by the prospect of a business partnership with the State. Plenty of enterprising individuals are too daunted by the paperwork and confiscatory nature of government to open the adult version of a lemonade stand.
Government policies thwart businesses even before they start.
The most persistent who do open shop are faced with government's taxing demands on their time and wallet. We all suffer from the State's undue interest in even our most innocuous and pedestrian entrepreneurial ventures. It is the lemonade stand owner and his kind, the productive individuals of society, who bankroll the bureaucracy. In a painful irony, the productive segment of society pays for a legion of government employees who dedicate their lives to impeding the work of lemonade salesmen everywhere. No one benefits from notarized signatures and forms in triplicate and junior assistants to the pro tem co-director of Public Works licensing.