D: There are certainly a lot of people who agree with you that nothing positive will come from Obamacare. But this is based on politics, not a non-partisan view of the facts. A fair view is there are a lot good things about Obamacare. Examples include more Americans having access to health insurance, kids 27 & under being able stay on parents plan, no existing condition limitations, etc. More specific to this blog, we also think it will improve health insurance options for independent workers and owners of small and micro businesses. Having said that, Obamacare is going to be expensive for the country and because many provisions are not well thought out, difficult to implement. So at least in my opinion, the jury's still out on whether or not Obamacare's net overall impact on the country will be positive or negative. Regardless, it's the law of the land and will continue to be so for at least 4 more years (and its highly likely for much longer).

Michael: We did talk about funding size and yes, it's relatively small for most. For coworking spaces (the topic of the conference), the size of the crowdfunded projects were in the $10k to $20k range. The amounts for small businesses in general look to be a bit lower. I agree crowdfunding won't replace traditional smallbiz loans anytime soon. But for the right product - or for folks raising seed or early stage funding - it's starting to be a viable alternative.

I'm seeing the folks that did the census tomorrow. I'll ask about why they have relatively few Dutch spaces (39) in their report.

Bill: I agree. And as someone who has kids I think the psychic value of having them is way understated. I know kids aren't for everyone, but they've made my life so much better in so many ways that their financial cost is, in my mind, negligible.