It's week two of the great Web 2.0 reality check, and so far it's unfolding about as one might expect. Layoff announcements from start-up companies came fast and furious, with companies such as AdBrite, Zillow, Pandora and Redfin cutting anywhere from 15 to 30 per cent of their staffs. There were some big ones too (1,500 people at eBay) and some big ones coming up (watch Yahoo!).

The job cuts are in response to the abrupt realisation, which I wrote about last week, that the global financial crisis was not going to leave the internet economy unscathed. Venture capitalists are warning their companies that they should act fast, cut their cash burn and figure out how to survive. Duly noted, said the entrepreneurs, and one result is layoffs.

Yet part of what's happening with these layoffs, as Michael Arrington at TechCrunch astutely notes, is that companies are taking the opportunity to cut weaker performers. Indeed, the daily blare of panic on the TV and in the financial press actually enables certain kinds of actions that would not be possible in normal times. At NewWest.Net, we implemented a pay cut last week as part of our cash-conservation efforts. We never could have done that even six months ago.

There was also something of a backlash to the apocalyptic warnings that came from some of the venture capital firms. Some pundits expounded on the theme that great technology and great entrepreneurs will win no matter what the economic climate. Others noted that recessions can be a great time to gain market share, since there is less competition.

The reality, of course, is that generalisations are just that, and every company and industry is different. Start-ups that are developing breakthrough technologies are different from those that are relying on breakthrough technologies to provide new services, for example. And advertising-supported businesses are potentially more vulnerable than those that relay on direct payment from business customers; in this recession, consumers have bigger holes in their pockets than most large businesses.

The interesting long-term question is whether economic policy will shift in a way that affects the start-up world. If, for example, Obama wins and the government decides to inject billions of dollars into green energy development as a way to create jobs, investment capital may well flow more heavily to that sector. If, in the effort to make sure the rich pay their fair share, tax policy changes to treat the "carried interest" that venture capitalists and private equity partners rely upon as ordinary income rather than capital gains, that could shrink venture capital as an asset class.

A cultural change may come about as well. Entrepreneurs have long been the mythic heroes of the American economy, while government employment is sometimes seen as little more than a refuge for freeloaders. These days, though, the benefits of having a government job are all too evident, and the Republican ideology that demonised the government is falling by the wayside.

Personally, I think this will be a healthy corrective. The government has long played a major role in funding the basic research that's led to technological innovation, and that role is more important than ever in a world where corporate spending on R&D continues to slide.

The government can also play a part in making funding available to entrepreneurs. It's always dangerous to for the government to pick winners and losers among start-up companies, and that's a pitfall of any program that involves direct subsidies or government investments.

But Small Business Administration loan programs could be liberalised, and state economic development programs overhauled to benefit entrepreneurs rather than the big companies that know how to negotiate the system. Any solution to the continuing real estate meltdown will also help start-ups, because many founders (including yours truly) use the equity in their house to get started.

The most important thing of all for supporting the innovation economy in the US, oddly, may have nothing to do with economic policy. Rather, it has to do with education, immigration, and America's global image as the land of opportunity. Immigrant labour, creativity and hunger for education and opportunity not only built America; it had a lot to do with building Silicon Valley (see Grove, Andy) and even Web 2.0 (ask Sergey Brin's parents.).

None of these macro things will do much for the start-up that's running out of cash today. But over time, I think the events of the past couple of months and what looks like a sweeping Democratic Party victory in the upcoming election could change the start-up world a lot more than we think.

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Jonathan Weber is the founder and editor in chief of NewWest.Net, a regional news service focused on the Rocky Mountain West in the United States. He was previously the co-founder and editor in chief of the Industry Standard