Taking the plunge(pool is empty)

The current economic climate is so dry at this point that I cannot even accidentally bankrupt myself.
Yesterday I applied for an unsecured loan. I was declined. This, while not unexpected, is not indicative of my credit score. It's also not indicative of my current financial state, available credit, job history, health or any other possible factor that could be used in determining that my application contained some defect.
It is because no one is giving out loans.
Many people who tell you to just jump off the edge of the ship, the water's great, you can make it even in this climate are not taking this into account.
You should never, ever use your own cash as startup capital. If you succeed, great. But if you fail, you will have wasted the nest egg that you needed to survive while you plead for your old job back. Now, if you're a lawyer, or have independent income that's all well and good but most(99%) of us don't have that kind of resource available to us and can't count on anything but our wits. This leaves us to take out loans against our homes, personal loans and small business loans to get started. It's great if you can do it and it gives you the freedom to actually get your foot in the economy, creating an artifical cash flow until you gain momentum to really get started. You need this(you can't do everything on the cheap, just most things.) and mostly because the reason you are starting a business for yourself is that you aren't making enough money doing what you are doing.
Now, The Book says that you should start your own business even if you ARE happy with your current income level because you can free yourself from the actual responsibility of working for some jerk and making him money, instead of the other way around.
This leaves you with a few options. Since you can't walk into a Washington Mutual and ask for a loan anymore(don't walk into a WaMu for any reason anyway) you have to depend on other people who will give you money.
The problem with this is that these people are highly mobile and usually want to have a say in how you do business. Some of these people may be your mom. She always has suggestions.
Venture Capitalists, Grants, Relatives and Friends all will now be very interested in your day-to-day operations because your company is the now(hopefully) tangible representation of Their Money.
This defeats the purpose, really. To be honest, the point of quitting and starting your own company is to escape a boss, but you now have not only a boss who can fire you, but will invariably want reimbursement for every paycheck you have drawn. That's way worse than a regular job.

My advice? Wait. And Get Rich Slowly.

And You Can Too(Lets be honest though, you probablly can't)

I'm beginning to realize what these books are all about and the fundamental misunderstanding authors have when writing them.
Please note this is a broad sociological fact and not anything that reaches down to the individual level.

Authors subscribe to the convenient idea that anyone can do anything. This is not surprising as we are taught this as children, "You are SPECIAL" and "You can be ANYTHING you want to BE!" are common banners littered throughout public schools. This message is fine in school as children will usually not keep at something if they don't seem to show an aptitude for it.
This message extrapolated to it's logical conclusion(you are the same as me and can do anything I can do) is a dangerous message among adults however because people don't understand that they really do have fundamental differences.

The plain fact of it is this: Not everyone can understand everything. I suck at math, and can't do much with my personal finances without a spreadsheet to do it for me. Of course, I know how to program that spreadsheet but I can't even do so much as the basic addition in my head. Conversely my uncle is fantastic at monetary matters and math, but still uses the AOL browser, and believes he has to pay for e-mail.
So a book marketed to everyone(which is fine, you've got to sell books so it doesn't matter who reads them) that told people they could start a web empire with a few books on coding and a weekend is great for me, but a complete waste of time and energy to my uncle. Whereas a book on investing where you only need 5k and a weekday is great for him, but a waste of money and time for me.

The efficacy of these books is questionable at best, harmful at worst, unless you are a SMART PERSON. Now, it's very hard to determine if you are a smart person unless you've been given the opportunity to think using another person's brain(in which case, you probably are.)
We all THINK we are smart people, we all believe that our opinions are correct and unassailable by our opponents and of course we can't think otherwise, or our opinions would change.

2nd verse! Same as the first!

Ok so I haven't made much headway. Life gets in the way. By life, I mean sleep. And friends.
Apparently I need this lifestyle more than I realize- I haven't had time to get anything done.
Monday I fell asleep early(like 8 PM early) and Tuesday I worked on my social empire(talked with parents, friends) and helped some friends out who don't seem to know how to put baby furniture together.
It DID give me an idea however, a baby-furniture exchange site where people could...
do some things...
Oh people are reading this apparently so I need to keep my ideas to MYSELF.
I have 7 unique visitors since my last post so Hi, spam bots! Maybe you'll inadvertently launch me into relevancy.

Been reading THE BOOK- the 4 hour workweek, looking at the first few chapters, very inspiring. Inspiring is ALL it seems to be at the moment, trying to convince me "taking the plunge" is ok, and results in untold fortune. I am told this on a consistent basis but perhaps I require a little more built up skill before I do it?
Anyway- most of the first few chapters are "You can do it, no seriously". Seems like.