A downward slide has been slowly shifting the business landscape for years. Beginning sometime in the 1960s or 70s, an economic force silently started to take hold in America, taking with it jobs, traditions, and livelihoods. Mom and pop shops quietly started closing across the country, and small businesses from every sector — retail, dining, manufacturing — all started to close up shop. Several decades ago, something shifted that started to kill entrepreneurial spirit, and it persists to this day.
