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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Who’s not paying their fair share? According to Elizabeth Warren, those who build factories and create jobs – meaning those who create wealth. Quoting her…
“You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did.”
My question is: Who are “the rest of us” that Elizabeth Warren talks about? The top 1% pay 38% of income tax, the top 10% pay 70%, the bottom 50% pay 2.7%. Who’s not paying their fair share?
The small business owner, who can’t afford lobbyists to buy loopholes, works 60, 70 hours a week, creates jobs by hiring employees, and maybe makes 2, 3, 400 thousand a year and what happens? He/she pays 50% taxes in fed income, state income, state sales, sometimes city income tax and city sales tax, property tax, fees up the ying-yang, and for what? Continue reading .
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So, after adding two trillion dollars in quantitative easing into the economy, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank Ben Bernanke decided that wasn’t enough and is adding another 600 billion dollars. And for what?
To bring down interest rates? Interest rates are already at historic lows. So the answer is to decrease the value of the dollar and bring back inflation.
Why? To bring up the value of the stock market. What does that have to do with the Fed? Absolutely nothing. It’s not in their purview, at least not according to their charter. But these are unusual times.
Here is a video explaining what the Fed’s quantitative easing really is… (This video has 2000 comments on YouTube!)
Well, that explains it!
What does this mean for you and your business? It’s not good.
We had a credit bubble. Too much credit allowed people to buy too many things. Now we have too much of everything. Too many houses. Too many stores. Too many products chasing too few dollars. That leads to deflation, which the Fed is trying to fight by causing inflation to counteract it.
Who’s going to win out? Well, I’m no economist but I think it’s going to be a long time before we work out all the excess credit and the government and the Fed are not helping by trying to prop up the old prices of housing and other goods, just like Japan has been doing for the past 20 years to no avail.
Keynesian economics has proved to be a failure. The Austrian school of economics says let the market fall, find a bottom, then rebuild without government interference. The 700 billion dollar TARP plus the 900 brillion dollar “stimulus” from the government and the 2.6 trillion stimulus from the Fed are not helping, they’re prolonging the misery.
We could have gotten where we are for free….
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Would you play poker if they kept changing the rules in the middle of the game? Yet you, as a small business owner, are expected to plan ahead when the rules keep changing and you need a government interpreter just to figure out what the hell is going on.
What are your tax rates going to be on income, capital gains, or dividends in two months? No one knows. Hell, Congress not only left before addressing next years mammoth tax hikes, they never came up with their own budget for the government. That’s their job!
How is Obamacare going to affect your business? No one has actually read the bill and the regulations are still being written. But everyone knows it’s going to be bad for business – like the new 1099 requirement, which doesn’t even concern health care.
How about payroll? According to Inc.com,
For many business owners this year, the budgeting process may grind to a halt once they hit the payroll line item.
Aside from pervasive concerns over the pace of economic growth, there’s the rising cost of health care, new health care rules and regulations, and a tax environment that’s anything but certain. Even the small business incentives recently legislated seem to many to be too little, too late.
Let’s just take a quick look at small business health care incentives. First, it depends on the number of employees and their average salary. Then, it only lasts for two years! Then, you’re stuck with the full price. How’s that going to affect your hiring decisions?
Most small business owners I know are just “hunkering down”, trying to weather the storm. But it’s going to last for years and you have to make decisions about your business’s future.
So where do you turn? If you have a good accountant you may be able to get some advice on the government’s maelstrom of regulations.
One CEO I saw on one of the financial channels said that their employees who could interpret all of the new regulations were being snapped up by other companies at salaries starting at over $300K a year.
One good resource I often use is NFIB.com (the National Federation of Independent Business). It has a ton of free content and memberships are available at $180/year.
My only other advice is to vote the idiots out tomorrow (Nov 2). Down here in Florida we have an invasive plant called kudzu – it takes over everything and destroys the natural ecology, just like the federal government is trying to do with the economy. It’s time to break out the herbicide..
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Just a quick security checklist for all small business offices and office computers…
- A hardware firewall (router) protecting all business computers – can be upgraded to a SMB security device for larger offices
- Encrypted Wi-Fi Network
- Employee Training
- Don’t download or install software
- Limit use of USB drives
- Don’t divulge passwords
The following should be on all business computers…
- Secure Profile Login
- Security Suite
- Should cover all types of malware and optionally include secure web browsing (software checks for known malware sites)
- Subscription valid and virus database updated daily
- Full computer scan at least weekly
- Updated Software
- A good tool for this is Secunia (http://secunia.com/)
- Data Backup System
The following should also be on all business laptops and smartphones although they can also be on office computers if susceptible to theft…
- File Encryption – like TrueCrypt (http://www.truecrypt.org/)
- Password Software protecting all passwords with a master password – like LastPass (http://lastpass.com) or RoboForm (http://www.roboform.com/)
- Optional: LoJack (http://www.absolute.com/en/lojackforlaptops/) or other tracking software
- Optional: BIOS password
This is just a minimum. There are other options like disabling USB ports on employee computers, restricting employees to Limited User accounts, restricting Internet access, requiring re-login to Windows after a screensaver kicks in, etc.
How does your business stack up?.
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Small businesses pay a disproportionate amount per employee to meet the requirements of federal regulations.
According to a study for the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy (summary, full report) the total cost in the U.S. to meet federal regulations in 2008 was $1.75 trillion. Yes, that’s trillion with a T.
So let me get this straight. First, the government is spending $4 trillion. Then it costs $1.75 trillion to comply with their regulations. If the economy is $14 trillion that means that government is 40% of the economy. And that’s just the feds – it doesn’t include state and local governments.
Not only that, but small businesses are paying a higher cost per employee than large businesses. According to the report, companies with less than 20 employees pay an average of $10,585 per employee while companies with over 500 workers pay $7,755. That’s 36% higher for small businesses.
Breaking it down by sector, small businesses pay 364% more per employee to meet environmental regs and 206% more for tax compliance.
And it’s just going to get worse with the health care bill, not to mention the latest attempt in congress to regulate all small farmers.
I recently read a book called Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories From the Local Food Front by Joel Salatin that’s a fitting description of a small businessman dealing with federal regulators.
All I can say is “C”mon Tea Party!”
Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories From the Local Food FrontEverything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories From the Local Food Front
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