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Not all people who start businesses dream of huge multimillion- dollar corporations with international sales. Many just want to sell things- fruits and vegetables, home appliances, clothes or computers so that they can be “their own bosses”. These small businesses are important part of the US economy. Every year hundreds of thousands of Americans start their own businesses. A government agency, the Small Business Administration, helps with information advice, and, sometimes, loans and grants. Many large companies with many stores started as one-store operations. That is the kind of success that can be found throughout American history. The Coca- Cola company, which distributes its soft drinks around the world, began when a pharmacist mixed together the first Coca-Cola drink and began selling it in the southern city of Atlanta, Georgia. One of the best known food companies in the United States is the H.J.Heinz Co., which specializes in pickles, mustard and ketchup. It had its beginnings when a teenager started to sell various food items door to door and on the street. Blue jeans, the popular denim trousers known to teenagers around the world, were invented by a poor cloth peddler who sold his first pairs to gold miners in California in 1850s. His company, Levi Strauss, remains one of the largest clothing manufactures in the United States. The many laws and regulations of modern American capitalism have not prevented people with ideas and dreams from starting new businesses. One example from the 1970s is that of two young men who thought they could built a new and better computer. They worked for months building a new machine, and then began gathering money to pay for its production on a large scale. One of them sold his car to get the needed capital. In 1977, they started a company called Apple Computer Corporation. By 1991, that corporation was one of the largest computer manufacturers in the United States, with annual sales of $ 5.5 billion. Stories like this create an image of America as a place in which a person can go “from rags to riches”, and many people have. There have been others who failed, however, and many others who have not wanted to take a chance at becoming a business owner. One of the most significant changes in recent decades has been a shift from the production of goods to the delivery of services as the dominant feature of the American economy. Where once most workers in the United States produced actual goods- from toothpastes to tires - most Americans today work in the sector of the economy, that is broadly defined as providing services. Service industry includes retail businesses, hotels and restaurants, communications and education, entertainment and recreation, federal and local government, office administration, banking and finance, and many other types of work. At the same time, as many traditional manufacturing enterprises in the United States decline or grow slowly, new companies spring up that are developing high technology computer, aero-space or biochemical products and services.
