| 0 |
Subject: Small Business In America
Posted by: Pancho Villa
- [2131916] Tue, Jul 01, 2014, 12:47
There has been a rather heated discussion about the state of small business in America that has bled into several unrelated threads.
Like many subjects, but even more so with small business, it's impossible to apply generic statements about something as diverse and challenging as small business ownership.
The home painting company in Boise has a completely different set of elements to contend with than the owner of a scuba dive shop in Ft. Lauderdale. The bakery in Grand Rapids and the carpet cleaning service in Tucson have little in common.
The advent of the internet has changed the landscape of small business dramatically. Sales over the internet require no personal sales skills. Traditional marketing like yellow pages have become obsolete. Direct mail will suffer the same fate. Depending on the media market, television and radio advertising are cost prohibitive. A 30 second radio spot on a top 20 radio station in Chicago versus the same spot cost in Casper is astronomical. The cost for a web page in those markets is basically the same.
Internet sales are exempt from state sales tax where applicable, although there are shipping costs. Some businesses, like new car dealerships, have to have inventory on hand. Some types of manufacturing are labor intensive; some are fully automated.
Regardless of the type of business, nearly all have this in common - cash flow. If a vendor requires COD for a product, but the customer pays 30 day net( or more if you've ever done business with a government entity or construction firm). Reserve cash and lines of credit are essential in such cases.
One point of contention is that federal regulations are impeding the ability for small business to succeed. Given the ridiculous amount of federal regulations, I have no doubt that, in some cases, there is more than a modicum of truth to that statement. But it's my contention that state and local regulations have a much larger impact on small business. I don't know how manufacturing, big or small, can survive in California, which has a regulation for every possible condition. True, there's been a mass exodus of manufacturing from California the past few decades, yet cities like San Francisco, San Jose(which was considered a hell hole when I was growing up), San Diego and my childhood home of Pasadena outside LA, are such desirable places to live, that a modest home anywhere but the seediest ghetto or barrio, priced around $500,000, is considered such a great deal that it's snatched up the day it goes on the market. The real estate market there has returned to pre-bubble levels. Hard to believe it's sustainable.
My own experience as a small business owner/operator has been very positive as I approach retirement. I would say that I've been lucky, but I don't really believe that. Hitting the lottery is luck. Building a successful business, while dependent somewhat on forces beyond one's control, is generally the result of hard work, determination and a set of skills developed from natural ability and experience.
Most everyone either works, has worked or has close relations with someone involved with a small business environment. I'm interested what others have to share on this subject, given the diverse products, services and locations involved.
|
| 1 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Wed, Jul 02, 2014, 02:53
|
Interesting topic and approach PV. From my perspective, as an F&I Manager (the guy who does the paperwork when you buy your car, boat, motorcycle, etc etc), there is indeed a plethora of regulations which I alone must comply with, in regards to consumer lending.
Regs M and Z, covering Retail installment Loans or Leasing contracts. Their content, structure, disclosures etc.
Graham-Leach-Bliley Safeguards rules which governs how we store and dispose of personal information we have gathered in the normal course of business.
Red Flags rules (a 73 page manual), governing how we collect that information, protect against Identity Theft, specific cautionary signs (red flags) that can be thrown up in the course of a transaction.
Truth in Lending Act, Federal Privacy Act, Risk Based Pricing Notices, Adverse Action Notices, Patriot Act compliance requirements, OFAC (Office Foreign Assets and Controls) applicability, teh new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Treasury Dept Regs and of course IRS regulations.
All of these incur costs, and all are just the few I deal with on a daily basis. In the service department you get into OSHA and HAZMAT and probably the same in Parts since that is where the retail stock of oils and lubes is handled and stored.
Then you have the showroom, with a mixture of flammable clothing items, motorized vehicles, and oils and lubes on shelving. So fire regs, ingress/egress requirements, insurance needs etc, all come into play.
In every case, the regulations come with an inherent "cost" for compliance and of course via civil and/or criminal penalties a very real cost for NON-compliance.
But before I lament the costs associated with all of these regulations, I have to ask what it might be like WITHOUT them? Believe me when I tell you, when you go into a car lot and finance your car purchase today, you are getting a HUGELY better deal than your fathers/grandfathers got. From vastly lower margins from the sale of vehicles to much reduced revenue (as a percentage) from the F&I office, from parts and from service. The reduced costs to the consumer, are vast. And those dollars translate into economic benefit being spread throughout a localized economy. There is a very real financial benefit to that, to help offset the regulatory costs. Further, are the safety issues. Both physical safety (courtesy OSHA and fire regs for ex) and data safety and security. The first, precludes potentially fatal injuries and there inherent costs and the second helps to mitigate ID Theft losses and those rather substantive costs. Costs both in terms of dollars and lost productivity as the victim of ID theft spends hundreds of hours getting things set right, maybe.
I think back too, to how industry was run prior to OSHA and unionization. I dont think for one minute any of us want ourselves or our family members, to have to work an industrial job under those circumstances, ever again. So are there costs to be born? Of course there are. But there are also very real costs in NOT regulating as well.
|
| 3 | biliruben
ID: 41431323
Wed, Jul 02, 2014, 06:57
|
I don't own a business, but just about everyone in my family does.
My wife has worked as an independent contractor, where I did the books. It was fairly simple with few regs and tremendous tax advantages.
my sister owns an acupuncture clinic, and while she was very nervous about ACA, it has mostly been positive changes.
My ma had a consulting business and now has opened an airbnb, which is ridiculously low-reg. Almost wild-west as they sort out how this is supposed to work. She loves it.
My dad is still CEO of a small aerospace company he started after retiring, and it appears to be doing quite well.
The doom and gloom of the Baldwins of the world just seem like contrived and self-defeating negativity. Everyone I know with a small business is thriving.
|
| 5 | Pancho Villa
ID: 2131916
Wed, Jul 02, 2014, 10:18
|
Is #4 really relevant?
Stringent socioeconomic controls require suppression of the opposition through terror
Is this an endemic problem with small business in this country? If so, there must be millions of examples that can be cited.
One of my main clients, Ivory Homes recently resolved what can possibly be described as a private property regulation issue with the EPA.
Denver, Colo. – June 24, 2014) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced that Ivory Homes, Ltd. has agreed to resolve alleged Clean Water Act violations at several locations in Utah and will invest in a company-wide compliance program to improve employee training and stormwater management at all current and future residential construction sites. Ivory Homes will also pay a Clean Water Act penalty of $250,000. The settlement will help prevent hundreds of thousands of pounds of sediment from entering Utah’s waterways as a result of construction activities.
“Keeping contaminated stormwater runoff out of the nation’s waterways is an EPA priority,” said Shaun McGrath, EPA’s regional administrator in Denver. “Today’s settlement requires Ivory Homes to implement comprehensive controls and training that will prevent runoff from contaminating Utah’s rivers, lakes and sources of drinking water.”
The agreement resolves alleged stormwater permit violations discovered through inspections of Ivory Homes’ construction sites in Utah. The majority of these alleged violations involved the company’s repeated failure to comply with permit requirements to install and maintain adequate stormwater pollution controls, conduct required inspections, and prevent the discharge of construction materials to nearby surface waters.
I don't know if Ivory Homes qualifies as a small business(they are the largest homebuilder in Utah), but for the sake of argument, let's say they are.
Stormwater runoff from construction activities can have a significant impact on water quality, affecting drinking water, reducing usability, and damaging valuable aquatic habitats. As stormwater flows over a construction site, it can pick up pollutants like sediment, debris, and chemicals and transport these to a nearby storm sewer system or directly to a river, lake, or coastal water. Polluted stormwater runoff can harm or kill fish and other wildlife. Sedimentation can destroy aquatic habitat, and high volumes of runoff can cause stream bank erosion.
The Clean Water Act requires permits for the discharge of stormwater runoff, which require that construction sites have controls in place to prevent impacts to nearby waterways. These include common-sense safeguards such as silt fences, phased site-grading, and sediment basins and training subcontractors to implement practices that prevent the discharge of pollutants.
So, are these requirements in the overall public interest, or are they stringent socioeconomic controls requiring suppression of the opposition through terror?
What are the socioeconomic consequences if Ivory contaminates water resources in the second driest state in the nation, where water is a precious commodity? What if all home builders in the state ignored what seem to be common sense requirements to adequately protect water resources?
|
| 6 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Wed, Jul 02, 2014, 12:29
|
I am in one of the oldest small businesses. I am a land lord. I am subject to a multitude of regulations that to me are just common sense (tenant rights, tax code, building code etc.). They dont really interfere with the core delivery of the service I offer, but do require that my competition behave themselves properly.
I see my obligations under all of these laws as a good thing. However, liability under lawsuit is a constant threat to my piece of mind.
At the risk of high-jacking this thread, I'll offer this thought. If there were an appropriate safety net for those suffering personal injury in this country, personal injury lawsuits could be legislated away. Likewise, if there were a national health care system, small businesses could thrive because wages would be all they would pay for as employee costs.
|
| 15 | Gator
ID: 13521231
Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 10:00
|
Baldwin, you and I have been wrong all these years. When we would look for economic indicators, we would check out the business and consumer confidence levels, the unemployment rate, money supply, etc...when all we had to do was ask PV how he is doing. I feel so much better now that I know the economy is booming because PV and the Provo pack are doing so well.
|
| 16 | Pancho Villa
ID: 2131916
Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 19:21
|
Maybe you just need help looking for economic indicators
Unemployment Rate Dips to Lowest Level Since 2008
The U.S. economy added almost 288,000 new jobs in June, according to new government data Thursday, handily beating analysts’ expectations and sending the unemployment rate to its lowest level since September of 2008.
The pace of job creation well outpaced projects that the economy would add 215,000 jobs. The unemployment rate dipped from 6.3% to 6.1%, its lowest level since the month Lehman Brothers collapsed and the U.S. economy went into a tailspin.
Stock markets jumped on the news, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average surpassing 17,000 points for the first time ever.
The data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics signaled that the economy was healthily bouncing back from a biting cold winter that hampered growth, and relieved economy watchers who had been alarmed by an economic contraction in the first quarter.
June marked the fifth consecutive month of job gains exceeding 200,000, the best clip since the tech boom of the late 1990s, the Associated Press reports.
Job growth figures for May were also revised upward. BLS described the job gains as “widespread,” powered by growth in “business services, retail trade, food services and drinking places, and health care.”
With exports hitting a record high and imports falling, the trade deficit fell 5.6% link
|
| 17 | Boldwin
ID: 5624318
Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 19:30
|
OMG, The real unemployment rate is like 21% and only looks 'good' because so many people have quit looking. Watch. There is a longstanding trend of news exonerating Obama but then getting revised downward after no one is paying attention anymore.
|
| 18 | Boldwin
ID: 5624318
Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 19:32
|
Can you imagine the MSM letting Reagan get away with talking about the weather when his recovery was still vapor six years out?
|
| 19 | Khahan
ID: 16341313
Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 19:46
|
If there were an appropriate safety net for those suffering personal injury in this country, personal injury lawsuits could be legislated away
Compensating the injured (which is the safety net) is only half the equation though. While I agree something needs to be in place to compensate the injured that is not the only benefit of personal injury suits. The awards from these suits are punitive damages. They punish the party who caused the injury and that is a good thing.
Doing away with personal injury lawsuits is a bad thing. However, something does need to be done to curtail them running rampant and being abused. I'm sorry, but if you hurt turn your ankle picking up your dog who ran into my yard towards my dog you should not be entitled to a thing (yes, this is a real life case one of my insured's is going thru). The injured should absolutely be allowed to consider a suit but if they lose there needs to be a review process to consider whether or not the suit was frivolous and if its determined frivolous there needs to be a penalty in place. In addition, any attorney who has a history of presenting frivolous suits should face a state bar board for review.
The personal injury suit in and of itself is relatively harmless. Its the people who abuse it who need to be dealt with in a swift and decisive fashion.
Here's another one for you from when I worked claims:
A line repairman was getting an early start on work, headed out at 2am. His job that day was working on overhead lines that ran over railroad tracks. These were the established facts of the case:
1. he went out off hours
2. He did not check rail schedules
3. He did not set up the proper safety equipment - warnings, clear view etc.
4. A train came down the tracks, struck the bucket he was in and he was thrown from the bucket, being killed by impact with the ground
His wife sued the company my insurance company represented. What did my company do, you might ask? Well, they assembled the bucket and attacked it to the truck the lineman was using. That was it. 5 years prior. In addition the company that installed the control device was pulled into the suit as was the train company and the conductor (individually) and the truck manufacturer. Noting that the above 4 points were established and not in dispute.
That was the very definition of a frivolous lawsuit in my eyes. Yet I had another company insured who manufactured industrial lubricants for machinery. They mis-filled an order and the lubricant they sent was not up to task. The result was an approximately $300,000 piece of equipment being damaged beyond repair. So why should the company who owned the equipment suffer? Why should the company I insured have no risk? By taking away personal injury suits the industrial lubricant company would get off, free and clear. No lawsuit to force them to pay for their mistake. So why care if they make mistakes?
As for the topic of the thread - i'm minority owner of a small business. An insurance agency in Pa. We are expanding, recently hiring a few new people. We see the general public every day. People are calling in for payment extensions because they are out of work. People call in for extensions because they just started work and are waiting on their first paycheck. Seems to be a lot of people getting new jobs. But most of those jobs are not careers. Still for the average joe citizen, the economy seems to be ok. It always is for us until layoffs hit. Thats really the only time the economy has a truly noticeable impact. That and the price of gas. Other than that most prices fluctuate, companies build up and fall down, presidents change, congress changes and the majority of the general public goes about their business.
|
| 20 | Pancho Villa
ID: 2131916
Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 21:40
|
OMG, The real unemployment rate is like 21% and only looks 'good' because so many people have quit looking.
That's called the U6 unemployment rate, and it's 12%. It peaked in 2009 at around 17%, so it's fallen 5% in 5 years.
The U6 unemployment rate counts not only people without work seeking full-time employment (the more familiar U-3 rate), but also counts "marginally attached workers and those working part-time for economic reasons." - marginally attached workers" include those who have gotten discouraged and stopped looking, but still want to work. The age considered for this calculation is 16 years and over
Of course none of the unemployment figures calculate the number of people working under the table, which is in the millions.
Common types of jobs that are paid cash-in-hand include:
Domestic work, such as housekeeping, babysitting, or foodservice
Construction work or farm work
Taxicab service (sometimes known as hacking)
Various types of self-employment, such as plumbing, window cleaning, painting and decorating, street market trading and gardening
Short-term work and day laborers
Short-term youth employment
Barbacking
link
Just what kind of person stops looking for work because they're discouraged? Probably the same kind of person who calls
Binder and Binder
Last year the Social Security Administration paid a billion dollars to claimants' lawyers out of its cash-strapped disability trust fund. The biggest chunk -- $70 million - went to Binder & Binder, the largest disability firm in the country. Lawyer Jenna Fliszar and Jessica White worked for Binder & Binder representing clients in front of disability judges from New Hampshire to West Virginia.
Jessica White: I was hired at the end of 2008 and business was booming because the economy was so bad. We had a lot of people who -- their unemployment ran out and this was the next step.
|
| 21 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 12:43
|
19 The awards from these suits are punitive damages. They punish the party who caused the injury and that is a good thing.
When I become king of the Americas, I will devise a plan to punish the guilty. There is no limit to my creativity.
BTW, what happened to posts 7-14, never got a chance to see them. They were prolly juicy too.
|
| 22 | Boldwin
ID: 5624318
Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 16:11
|
You have to get up pretty early in the morning to read this forum.
|
| 23 | sarge33rd
ID: 18648511
Sat, Jul 05, 2014, 12:48
|
post 15 reads like a REALLY piss poor joke.
The following metrics, since circa 1920, have shown consistent superior performance under Democratic Admins than under GOP Admins;
1) Personal household income
2) corporate income
3) GDP growth
4) employment figures
5) stock market performance
6) national debt (grown more slowly under Dems than under Republicans)
That is not a matter of opinion, but rather of verifiable historic fact. The numbers have been repeatedly posted for you. If you were actually looking at hard data and not partisan rhetoric, you would be a Democrat.
|
| 24 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Sun, Jul 06, 2014, 12:14
|
Anyone know what the exchange rate for Utils is nowadays?
What has happened to our economy since we left the gold standard anyway?
Is there a connection? I am sure market economists could do some kind of correlation.
|
| 25 | biliruben
ID: 41431323
Sun, Jul 06, 2014, 14:16
|
I'll give you B&O and Reading RR for Electric Company and Water Works.
|
| 26 | biliruben
ID: 41431323
Sun, Jul 06, 2014, 14:19
|
The main correlation is between growth and equality. From what I can tell, what influenced equality for the better is:
1) Taxing wealth and high incomes near where we tax middle-class incomes.
2) Strongly regulating the scions of finance.
We stop doing those things about the time that middle class incomes starting stagnating and inequality started to soar.
|
| 27 | Gator
ID: 13521231
Sun, Jul 06, 2014, 17:05
|
Sarge, I ripped apart your numbers on a previous thread. Must I do it again?
|
| 28 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Sun, Jul 06, 2014, 22:45
|
you did no such thing Gator. The numbers can not be "ripped apart". They are a matter of historic record. Like most RWNJs, you simply ignored the reality they presented, and attempted to redefine them so as to create your revisionist history.
|
| 29 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 10:29
|
Paul Krugman: Here's a New One—Faith-Based Economic Denialism
After all, these denialists are often highly educated people: "The problem, in other words, isn’t ignorance; it’s wishful thinking," Krugman writes. "Confronted with a conflict between evidence and what they want to believe for political and/or religious reasons, many people reject the evidence. And knowing more about the issues widens the divide, because the well informed have a clearer view of which evidence they need to reject to sustain their belief system."
Rather fitting column by the Nobel Laureate.
|
| 30 | Gator
ID: 13521231
Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 11:28
|
Paul Krugman is an idiot. You can give him all the awards from all the liberal organizations you like and he will still be an idiot. If Karl Marx were alive today, he would probably win 3 Nobel Peace prizes. You want a strong economy? Do the opposite of whatever Paul Krugman says. That moron has the guts to blame the current economic crisis on Reagan! That website you posted should have a hammer and sickle as it's logo.
|
| 31 | Perm Dude
ID: 431013412
Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 11:42
|
This is your "ripping," Gator? Just calling a person a communist, and an idiot?
That works on FOX, I suppose. The point of this entire thread is that most of the country, and virtually all of the world, exists outside of the spin cycle of FOX news.
|
| 32 | Gator
ID: 13521231
Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 11:46
|
Let's look at the times when the economy boomed..JFK was an economic conservative and the economy boomed. Reagan was an economic conservative and the economy boomed, Newt Gingrich was an economic conservative and directed the economy to boom. Now lets look at the bad times... Woodrow Wilson became a socialist (some say he was ill and his wife took over) and teamed with Socialist FDR they kept the economy down for 17 years and if not for WWII they could of gone for 20. Jimmy Carter was a socialist and damn near drove us into a depression, and now we have a socialist President who has slowed the economy for 6 years. Name one president whose socialist policies have helped the American economy or any country where socialism aided the economy. Socialists excel at propaganda but are clueless on the economy.
|
| 33 | Perm Dude
ID: 431013412
Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 12:12
|
Newt Gingrich was an economic conservative and directed the economy to boom
This made me LOL.
There is nothing so incredibly un-American as the current far right, who cheer on, exaggerate, and at times make up whole cloth America's problems, then utilize the resultant lower confidence to justify the crap fest put out by people making money over misery.
Continue to bend over for that if you want. The rest of us will be out here in the real world when you wake up from being tooled for so long.
FEMA Camps! Socialist! An up stock market is actually down!
What utter nonsense, and drool. Taken together, they are not the words of a serious person.
|
| 34 | Pancho Villa
ID: 2131916
Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 12:49
|
now we have a socialist President who has slowed the economy for 6 years
Proven to be false. What we have are whiners who are too lazy to take advantage of a growing and healthy economy, and hate America(and themselves) so much that they're praying for an economic collapse just so they can say, "I told you so."
|
| 35 | Pancho Villa
ID: 2131916
Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 13:13
|
Woodrow Wilson became a socialist (some say he was ill and his wife took over) and teamed with Socialist FDR they kept the economy down for 17 years
I noticed you conveniently skipped Warren Harding, one of the most corrupt administrations ever(and in such a short amount of time), Calvin Coolidge - Many linked the nation's economic collapse to Coolidge's policy decisions. His failure to aid the depressed agricultural sector seems shortsighted, as nearly five thousand rural banks in the Midwest and South shut their doors in bankruptcy while many thousands of farmers lost their lands. His tax cuts contributed to an uneven distribution of wealth and the overproduction of goods. Many Americans were deeply in debt for having purchased consumer goods on easy installment credit terms link and Herbert Hoover, president at the time of the 1929 collapse and generally(unfairly IMO) receiving the blunt of the blame for the depression.
It would be hard to find something on this forum(other than Boldwin's) that falls into the category of "partisan hack" than the above distortion of history.
|
| 36 | sarge33rd
ID: 41617712
Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 13:17
|
Paul Krugman is an idiot.
Translation: He does not agree with that HS dropout G Beck and I, So fck his Nobel Prize. We know more than he does.
Please tell me, I am not alone in seeing the unintentional hilarity behind Gator's statement.
|
| 37 | biliruben
ID: 561162511
Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 13:42
|
Gator's right. Teabagger's have a much better sense of humor. 32 is an excellent example.
|
| 38 | Pancho Villa
ID: 2131916
Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 18:28
|
Here's a good article detailing the challenges facing small business in today's economic climate. Crisis on Main Street: The End of Mom and Pops?
"It's hard to change people's mentality, when they can go to Wal-Mart and get things for half the price," said Rogers. "The big-box chains are surrounding us. They get so many different breaks and benefits that it's hard to compete."
Many people romanticize the idea of running a small business, but it's not so easy in today's environment. Entrepreneurs face competition from all over the globe via the Internet. Low-cost loans are still hard for very small firms to get despite an improved credit climate. Health insurance for the self-employed remains a costly burden for many. Perhaps as a result, many Americans aren't even attempting to start a business—once a big part of the American dream of independence. The Brookings Institution, a nonprofit research organization, found in a recent study that business creation has been declining for several decades.
J. Patrick Saunders, founder of a Colorado Springs, Colorado-based engineering firm that does business under the name SMEP Design Group, wants to hire two people but has not been able to get the bank financing to expand, in part because Saunders is hesitant to put his house up as collateral.
Meanwhile, the 12-employee firm, which relies heavily on government contracts, is recovering from the federal budget sequestration last year. It had a good year in 2012, bringing in $2 million, but suffered a body blow when the government hit the brakes on its operations. "We lost about half of our business," he said. "That just about killed us."
I started this thread with the idea of having a lucid and informative discussion about the challenges facing small business in this country.
If we can dispense with
now we have a socialist President who has slowed the economy for 6 years
when all we had to do was ask PV how he is doing. I feel so much better now that I know the economy is booming because PV and the Provo pack are doing so well
we might be able to elevate the conversation above the lowest common denominator.
|
| 39 | Boldwin
ID: 57650716
Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 22:31
|
It doesn't even dawn on PV that his good fortune might be to live among conservative responsible people pulling their own weight, with less of the social disintegration we see in big blue cities.
|
| 40 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 23:02
|
If we can dispense with
It would appear, as though someone is unwilling to allow that to happen PV.
|
| 41 | Pancho Villa
ID: 2131916
Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 23:21
|
#39
I am fortunate to be among conservative, liberal, moderate and apolitical responsible people pulling their own weight.
|
| 42 | biliruben
ID: 105572020
Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 23:38
|
Take a look at Seattle's economy, and marvel at the socialist miracle. We got a real one. And a gay mayor. And a 15 dollar minimum wage. And exploding growth.
|
| 43 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Tue, Jul 08, 2014, 00:48
|
{sarcasm] just think where you could be {/sarcasm}
|
| 44 | Boldwin
ID: 1763385
Tue, Jul 08, 2014, 06:34
|
Let's dispense with this 'stock market is 'healthy' so the economy must be healthy' meme.
The stock market is experiencing a Fed created bubble. That's what the Fed does. It creates bubbles. With interest rates hovering around zero investors are forced into riskier investments. In addition with the inevitable inflation inherent in unprecedented money printing, they are desperate to hold assets against such an inevitable collapse in the value of money.
Bubbles crash. Unprecedented and unsupported bubbles crash spectacularly.
|
| 45 | Boldwin
ID: 1763385
Tue, Jul 08, 2014, 06:39
|
Seattle economic forecast: no fireworks for 2014
|
| 46 | Boldwin
ID: 1763385
Tue, Jul 08, 2014, 06:43
|
I wonder what Obama's recent loss in SCOTUS re: NLRB does to Boeing's business plans.
|
| 47 | biliruben
ID: 28420307
Tue, Jul 08, 2014, 07:04
|
The only thing the Seattle Times is good for is getting your Chiminea going.
Instead of looking at forecasts by dubious sources, look at the actual stats.
May 2014 Employment Report,
Seattle ranked number 2 internationally for economic development.
Between Amazon, Microsoft, Boeing, University of Washington, and a thousand other tech, biotech and health care companies, Seattle looks to doing just fine.
|
| 48 | Gator
ID: 13521231
Tue, Jul 08, 2014, 08:41
|
I will go with PV's wishes and discuss 2 friends who recently opened up their small businesses. One is really unique, he is a progressive rock bassist who opened a doctor's office. He flips from liberal to conservative views with ease. He is doing well and says that having a lot of capital was the key. The only affect the government has had on him was his confidence in the government and with his music. He is unable to draw the crowds he once did due to lack of money of his fans. This makes sense to me as the medical field is some what recession proof and entertainment relies on disposable income. The other friend is a scientist with 4 degrees, he one of the leading experts in water purification and has written many books on the subject. Government regulations forced him to give up his business and join a larger water purification company. He did not have as much capital as my first friend due to a divorce. These examples show that one can open a business and be successful in spite of Obama but it depends on the field of the business and the capital on hand. Saying Obama had destroyed all hope for anyone wanting to start a business was hyperbole, but his anti-business policies have hurt many with consumer and business confidence being at one of the all time lows. Obama claimed he wanted to unite the country and all he did was empower the liberals of his base.His remark about making the rich pay their fair share is pure class warfare whether you agree with the statement or not.
|
| 49 | Pancho Villa
ID: 2131916
Tue, Jul 08, 2014, 10:55
|
He is unable to draw the crowds he once did due to lack of money of his fans.
Without knowing the specifics, having been a professional musician for 15 years, and another 10 in rock radio, I have a hard time buying that line.
Even in its heyday, progressive rock lingered mostly on the outskirts of commercial success, with bands like Pink Floyd, Yes, Queen and early Genesis being notable exceptions. Could probably throw Rush and Kansas in there as well. The last progressive rock band to make any real waves commercially are my old friends from Seattle, Queensryche, although most would tag them as metal. Maybe we have different definitions of progressive rock, but those are the bands generally associated with the genre. So you have a limited and aging fan base, and music that doesn't lend itself to dancing, so club work is somewhat limited.
It's hard to make a living as a rock musician any way you look at it, and it usually requires a grueling travel schedule.
Somehow, fans have enough money to support every DJ Dog and his hip hop outlaws who display little musical skill, every country act that really plays pop rock, and classic rock acts like Journey, Styx, Steve Miller and Lynryd Skynyrd, who are pushing 70, but have a catalog of singalong hits to draw upon. I have to think that if his fans were many and still frequented live performances, they'd find the money to support his career, as fans do with other genres.
Government regulations forced him to give up his business and join a larger water purification company.
Government regulations doesn't tell us anything. What regulations and how did it force him out of business?
|
| 50 | Gator
ID: 13521231
Tue, Jul 08, 2014, 11:07
|
I wrote it wrong. He is progressive metal. That's what he calls it, I call it noise. The type where you scream like a devil. They have a small but loyal base I am told, not a fan so I have no idea.
John and I haven't talk about the details of what exact regulations hurt him the most. It is a bit of a sore subject, so I don't push it. He does love his work, if you bring up the subject, he will talk 2 hours straight about water purification.
|
| 51 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Wed, Jul 09, 2014, 10:53
|
<44> With interest rates hovering around zero investors are forced into riskier investments.
This is why real estate is making such a rebound. Low interest rates are a good thing for the economy. Seems like you are trying to imply that the Fed is doing the wrong thing to screw things up intentionally.
Interest rates will always have an inflation factor within them. Please, let's not argue that. What I always like to watch is the difference between savings rates and loan rates. Seems a basic savings account is paying zero nowadays and mortgages are 4%. The difference is what the banks like to call profit. Is 4% the correct amount of profit given that all VA and FHA loans are government backed securities?
|
| 52 | biliruben
ID: 105572020
Wed, Jul 09, 2014, 13:11
|
I think the RE rebound is largely, though not completely statistical illusion. The year over year comparisons I am seeing look large because a year ago there was a much larger mix of low-end distressed homes on the market. Short sales. Foreclosures.
This varies a bit by market, but I am betting we see low single digit YOY changes when we start to see 2015 v 2014 next spring.
|
If you believe a recent post violates the policy on Civility and Respect,
you may report the abuse via email to moderators@rotoguru1.com | |
|
|
Post a reply to this message: Small Business In America
|
|