Everyone has a top ten list at the end of the year but rather than slave over creating ten videos I’m turning to the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB).
NFIB is a great resource for small businesses, and they’ve created their own top ten video list. It covers subjects like unemployment and unemployment insurance, the federal deficit and debt ceiling, the EPA, the new health care regulations and one bright spot of young entrepreneurs.
The videos are all around 5 minutes or less, so check them out…
Top 10 Videos of 2011 for Small Business.
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Do politicians never learn? California, like many other states, just passed a law mandating online companies (like Amazon.com) collect state sales tax if their “presence” in the state includes affiliate marketers.
The Supreme Court has already ruled that a state can’t mandate collection of sales tax unless a company is physically within its boundaries. So, whenever a state passes some silly law that says an online affiliate constitutes a corporation’s physical presence, Amazon tells all those poor affiliates that they can’t be affiliates anymore.
So what happens to the state? NO MORE INCOME TAXES FROM THE REVENUE ON AFFILIATE SALES!
California, which has about the worst budget deficit in the country, just shut down 25,000 sources of income tax. Why do you think so many companies are leaving California? Why have California and other liberal states lost population over the last few decades?
Because you can’t do business in California without the government as an unwanted partner. An overbearing, micromanaging, ignorant partner to boot. (A State Board of Equalization? Really? I’m just saying.)
I’ve written about this often, but the stupidity of politicians is truly mind-boggling.
It’s like when the federal government passed a special 10% surtax on any recreational boats over $100,000. What happened? The boat manufacturing business lost 20,000 jobs. With that loss of income tax, the government ended up losing money.
When a government gets too greedy, the economy goes underground. Look at Greece. 30% of its economy is “off the books”. When taxes get too high people find some way around them or just move somewhere else.
So why do governments do it? Because of the way government does accounting. Say that in your state 10 million cartons of cigarettes are sold per month. If you raise taxes by $1.00 a carton, the state gets an extra $10 million a month, right? WRONG!
People quit smoking. The politicians even say that’s why they’re doing it, to make people quit smoking (for their own good, of course, that’s why they’re called sin taxes). Or people start smoking pipes, or buy their cigarettes in the next state, or on the black market. The government KNOWS that will happen.
If that’s the case, why do they figure on collecting $10 million/month? It’s called “static accounting”. They don’t take human nature into account.
As a small business person, you know if you triple your prices you’re NOT going to triple your revenue. Why? Because people quit buying if the price is too high. If you start counting on that income you are going to be in for a rude awakening. It’s called the law of diminishing returns.
It’s the same thing with taxes only politicians are just too damn stupid to figure it out. They all just pat each other on the back and start spending the money they think they’re going to get.
This week President Obama stated that businesses don’t like added regulations “because it eats into their profits”. Well, duh! How does the government think it makes money? Through JOBS. Through BUSINESS. And the government is doing everything it can to ruin both while complaining of those ‘greedy businessmen” and companies “hoarding” cash.
Let me ask you something, would you go to Las Vegas and gamble your money if the pit boss changed the rules every 10 minutes? I don’t think so.
I don’t know about you, but I am so tired of hearing about greedy businessmen during the last 2 years. How about a few news stories on greedy governments?
Further reading:
The silly California law (PDF)
Amazon ends deal with 25,000 California websites
[Update Oct. 7, 2011]
Amazon has worked out a deal with the California legislature to hold off for a year while Amazon tries to prod the federal government to come up with a nationwide solution regarding online sales taxes (yeah, good luck with that). Amazon then sent emails to former California affiliates asking them to re-up..
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Adobe is releasing an out-of-cycle patch for Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat today to patch a vulnerability for iPod Touches, iPads and iPhones.
The patch will affect all operating systems, not just Apple products. The next scheduled release of Adobe patches was October 12th, but due to the critical nature of this vulnerability Adobe is releasing the patch early.
From the Adobe Security Bulletin:
Adobe is planning to release updates for Adobe Reader 9.3.3 for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX, Adobe Acrobat 9.3.3 for Windows and Macintosh, and Adobe Reader 8.2.3 and Acrobat 8.2.3 for Windows and Macintosh to resolve critical security issues, including CVE-2010-2862 discussed at the Black Hat USA 2010 security conference and the Adobe Flash Player update as noted in Security Bulletin APSB10-16. Adobe expects to make these updates available on Thursday August 19, 2010.
Adobe’s Flash Player was just patched yesterday. If your Flash Player hasn’t automatically updated, go to adobe.com to get the update..
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There’s a new vulnerability in Windows XP concerning parts of the Help and Support system. It was found by a Google researcher who posted the flaw just five days after talking with Microsoft about it. Evidently Microsoft wasn’t addressing the issue fast enough for him, raising a bit of a backlash from the community for not giving Microsoft time to respond.
Whatever the case, the exploit is now in the wild and XP machines are vulnerable to drive-by attacks on evil web sites.
It affects Windows XP’s Help and Support functions. Anything using the HCP protocol (hcp:// URI’s) is subject to unauthorized commands.
The easiest way to fix it is to go to Microsoft’s ‘Fix it’ page. You can fix it and, if you don’t like what happens, unfix it from the same site. Pretty cool.
This can also be manually done by following these simple directions:
- Click Start, and then Run.
- Enter regedit, and click OK.
- Expand HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, and then highlight the HCP key.
- Right-click and Export the ‘Selected Branch’ to be on the safe side.
- Right-click the HCP key, and then click Delete.
I read that it may cause some problems in your Control Panel, but I’ve tried most of the links and everything seems to be working on my XP computer.
[Editor's Note: This vulnerability was fixed in this month's Windows Update (July 13th), so make sure your computer is set to update Windows automatically or open your IE browser and go to Tools/Windows Update to download the security patch].
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Here they go again. For the third time recently the U.S. Senate, this time in the form of Senator ??Joe Lieberman (I-CT) is proposing a bill that would grant the President the power to seize control of or even shut down parts of the Internet in the event of a cybersecurity emergency.
Previous attempts by Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) didn’t get too far. But Lieberman’s new attempt has been endorsed by Rockefeller and co-sponsored by Snowe according to a cnet article.
Now there’s bipartisanship for you… A Democrat, Independent and Republican all wanting more power for the government – power over the private parts of Internet. Continue reading .
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Connecticut is not quite there yet, but they’re considering it. They’re the latest in a growing number of states attempting to force Amazon.com and other large Internet retailers to collect state sales tax due to a “nexus” in their states composed of affiliate marketers.
Connecticut, like several other states, is trying to find its way around a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held a state cannot force businesses to collect sales taxes unless they have a physical presence within that state.
So, the poor Connectcuttian(?) sitting in his home office that puts an affiliate link on his web site means that Amazon has a physical presence in their state? Continue reading .
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