Archive for the 'Economy' Category

Mar 26 2011

ANGER RISING

Let’s get real,

                      

Entrepreneurs!

                                              

There’s not much room

                       

left on this planet

                                      

for more anger!

 

 

We can moan and groan all we want –and justifiably– about the pathetic, ill-conceived, mismanaged, misdirected, arrogant, naive, incompetent, overbearing, scathingly stupid behaviors fostered by the White House since 2008. It adds up to total lack of leadership and complete lack of vision . . . a branding program of anti-reality.

But bitching gets us nowhere. Attacking people personally for their attitudes and behaviors makes us no more reasonable than they are, and doesn’t achieve anything beyond stirring up more anger.

Anger doesn’t work.

                                                                                          

It’s not working in Libya, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Northern Ireland, or -today– not in London either. Certainly, it has never worked in the United States. It only serves to shorten fuses and make things worse.

Yes, we, as business owners and managers, have had enough. We are fed up with meaningless run-off-at-the-mouth oratory and reckless spending of our hard-earned tax dollars. We are fed up with attempts to have creeping socialism overpower democracy, our Constitution, and the free-enterprise system that built America.

Hope, Mr. Obama,

doesn’t work either.

                                                                           

It’s time for the federal government to back off and abandon its incessant attempts to smother small business. It is time instead to support the small business owner and startup entrepreneur world if there is ever to be a true economic recovery.

It is simply not true that America’s economy has turned the corner. Falsified unemployment numbers and make-believe claims that home sales are up and foreclosures are down couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Reality is that unemployment continues to worsen. Foreclosures continue to go up. Home sales continue to go down. And a rocket science degree isn’t required to size-up the impact on our daily lives; we need only to look at the gas pumps.

We are being lied to by government-controlled media stooges and greedy union thugs.

Yes we feel angry, but we are smarter than those who pose as leaders, and their contingent of talking heads. We know in our hearts that achievement and accomplishment will not be sidetracked if we maintain balance and control of the businesses we own and operate and birth. 

By working hard AND smart, by never forgetting that America is the product of entrepreneurial growth and our ever-guiding national motto:

“In God We Trust”

. . . by honoring and respecting all who we encounter, including the ignorant, we who own and manage small and family and home and garage businesses can lead America from the darkness of anger and fantasy.

____________________

It will take perseverance and it will take speaking up for what’s right instead of complaining about what’s wrong. Can we turn our anger into productivity? Are you willing to work harder at it?

What can you do to get started now, today?

                                                                      

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302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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Mar 23 2011

Talk To Yourself!

When all else fails, get in the

                                         

closet, or under the covers,

                                   

or lock yourself in the car

                              

. . . and talk to yourself!

 

 

Let’s face it, nobody knows more about your business than you. You can collect ideas and information from everyone who works with you, even those who work against you (like, for example, disgruntled people you once fired, or competitors, or in-laws ;<) and –as yesterday’s post suggested– single-digit-aged kids, but . . .

BUT sometimes, when you’ve got a problem brewing, that’s like sending someone else to the doctor’s office to get a check-up for you.

Only you can know what ails your business.

                                                                                             

Yeah, there’s government incompetency, over-regulation, sky-high taxes and fuel costs approaching tsunami proportions, plus other stuff that you can’t control (um, I did mention in-laws earlier?). There is, however, a whole lot you CAN control that you’ll find out about when you talk to yourself.

By the way, take notes!

Here’s how to dig deep under your skin, inside your gut (yucht!) and produce some viable solutions to the problems that threaten your business.

Follow these 17 steps to happy resolution and stop beating your brains in:

  1. Cancel your appointments for the afternoon.

  2. Find a private place.

  3. Go there.

  4. Take no hostages: no other people; no cell phones (torture, huh?); in fact, take no electronics of any kind (that means no radios, no portable WiFi’s, no leftover pieces of your dog’s Invisible Fence, no “Beam me in Scotty” magic rings!).

  5. Take some deep breaths . . . until you’ve wiped clean the slate in your head that has an agenda on it.

  6. Take some more deep breaths (can’t have too many of these!) and tell yourself (out loud) about all the things you’ve been doing right since the year started. Make a list. Yes, quote yourself! Actually write your brilliant comments down on a piece of paper.

  7. In each case, identify the key ingredient that made the situation work out positively. Say it out loud to yourself, and, yup, write it down!

  8. Are you still breathing?

  9. Next, zero in on the 3-ring target you draw. Announce out loud to yourself the number one most immediate problem that needs fixing. Write it down. Put it in the center circle. Next, state and write the number two most immediate problem that needs fixing, in the first ring, then state and record number three in the next ring.

  10. Take some more deep breaths.

  11. From your initial list of what you’ve been doing right, what key solution ingredient did you use that could be applied to your targeted issues? Say it. Write it. What’s left? 

  12. Write down what you might have thought about doing about any leftover problem(s) ten years ago. Don’t “Yes, but” yourself. Just write it down. Now put your pen and paper down, and sing a favorite song to yourself. If you can’t think of any, “Happy Birthday” works just fine. (I did tell you you needed a private place, right?) 

  13. Take some more deep breaths.

  14. Return to your target and speak out then write down three ways you could use to solve the remaining problem(s) — the first three that come to mind. Which of these is the most realistic and most practical? Need to re-invent your business? Re-invent yourself?

  15. Do it.

  16. Go back to work.

  17.  Have a great day! And remember, you have all the answers. Just reach in and grab them. And keep talking to yourself! 

 

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    Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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Mar 12 2011

Stop Running Scared!

This is an attitude message, not a sign-up or recruitment decree

                                                                                   

Don’t let the media  

                               

and the White House

                           

bully you around!

 

                         

It’s your business.

You’ve captained it through rough seas before.

You’ve made it this far.

You know in your heart that –as bad as this economy continues to be (in spite of all the White House and media protestations to the contrary)– you can survive the present turbulence by holding your ship steady and running the engines full ahead.

                                                                  

Why this message now? Because I see and hear about many small businesses getting weak-kneed and starting to actually consider caving in to all the psychological bullying messages that continue to run rampant out of the White House and the federal government’s puppet media, who have abandoned reporting for propagandizing.

Political manipulating has clearly replaced the reality of what it takes to turn around the economy. Don’t be bullied into buying all the nonsense spewing 24/7 out of the army of talking heads. Small business holds the only key to economic turnaround with genuine new job creation — real jobs that provide real career opportunities! 

I’ve had conversations with three business owners this past week (one retail, one manufacturer, and one service) who are claiming to be on the verge of abandoning most if not all marketing efforts to save money. “So board up your doors and windows too! Just toss in the towel now!” I was tempted to exclaim, but realized I’d simply be fueling the fires.

The L~A~S~T place to cut corners is marketing!

T h e   L~A~S~T   p l a c e.

No marketing, no prospects.

No prospects, no customers.

No customers, no sales.

Is that rocket science?

“Oh,” they say, “but we just can’t afford it anymore; marketing costs a fortune.”

                                                                        

No marketing doesn’t cost a fortune! Maybe the kinds of marketing you’ve historically done is proving too expensive to keep afloat in this killer economy, but good marketing does NOT have to be expensive.

In fact, really great marketing can be done for free or close to free when someone knowledgeable and experienced is handling it.

“Yes, but then there’s the expense of retaining those kinds of services!”   

First of all, the “Yes, but’s” run in the woods with the “Rabbuts.”

Secondly, and most importantly, there are VERY many resource people out there who have the know-how and the experience and the creative talents to put together a marketing program for you that is free or minimal expense, and that works, for far less money than you’ve been pouring into your earlier-days efforts.

Stop running! Stop doubting! Start searching! Be a detective!

If you are intent on marketing your business successfully for minimum expense and you are willing to focus a chunk of energy in finding the right individual or team who can do this for you, you will succeed!

And won’t that surprise your competitors? And (ahem!) the White House?     

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www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

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Mar 10 2011

What you see is . . .

In business and life:

THINGS AREN’T

                                

ALWAYS WHAT

                                        

THEY SEEM

 

The business world is filled

with its share of illusionists.

Look in the mirror. Are you

coughing from the smoke?

                                                                             

We are under relentless media bombardment of fake unemployment numbers. The make-believe news has risen to howling proportions. It’s the White House’s feeble attempt to have us all swallow that the economy is on the upswing (which failure to confirm requires, merely, a trip to your nearest gaspump, with $8 a gallon coming soon to you!).

Just the word “gaspump” puts a gasp in your ump, right?

Probably because it prompts you to remember the last guy who ripped you off.

(Am I imaging this? I doubt it!)

Looking back to November, 2008, should remind us all that in business as well as government (and all of life!), what you see is not always what you get!

                                           

Though most of us think the Latin phrase “Caveat Emptor”Let the buyer beware— first surfaced in the Ralph Nader consumerism movement of the 1960s, the birth of its use was in fact claimed in 1523, would you believe? So, bottom line here is that deception in business has been around for awhile.

Talk with anyone who sailed through the last few years of the “Dot Gone” Revolution in the 1990s, and you’ll hear sad tales of almost jumping out of tall buildings. I lost $500,000 with a legal signed contract in hand. Another family member lost $1.5 million with a signed contract in hand. The lesson? Signed documents mean nothing!

Where does that leave us? Having to be V~E~R~Y cautious about others we do business with. I’m not so much talking about customers (though big-ticket product and service customers have been known to take what they can and run). I’m really referring more to employment and investor and loan arrangements — big bucks deals!

But I’m also keying in on small business ripoffs that cost big-time hours and effort.

Those are the real killers of entrepreneurial spirit!

I need to make sales to eat.

It’s often hard to do due diligence on a small-time business down the road or in the next town enough to find out that the owner is a scam artist, looking to con as much information from your brain as possible, for free!

                                                                         

Experience has taught me some, but –in the end– I still have to sell my services. Selling services requires giving services. You can sample the pastrami in a deli, but any kind of consultant (except maybe a pastrami consultant) has to provide a sampling of know-how and experience, and that takes time. And time costs money.

So figuring out how to best parcel out samples of your expertise in order to hook the fish but not lose your shirt is the ultimate challenge. And you may never win if you don’t approach prospects with reserved skepticism. I’m not suggesting distrust. I trust everyone until they prove otherwise. I’m talking about being yellow-light-cautious. 

Not everyone has your integrity. Not everyone believes in God. Not everyone functions completely on her or his own. (You’ve heard of silent partners? Wives? In-laws?)

There’s not a whole lot we can do about gas prices, but we always have control of whom we choose to do business with. Yellow lights are only followed by red lights!

Stay alert. Don’t get hurt!

                                                                                          
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302.933.0116   Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

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Mar 09 2011

RE-INVENT YOURSELF!

When the odds are

                                                                         

stacked against you

                                                             

. . . change you!

                                                          

 

You may not always be able to do something to change the odds, but you can always do something about changing yourself. Entrepreneurs are best at this.

Many online business entities and retail shopping club organizations (like CostCo and BJ’s) excel at transforming both the ways and the means with which they do business.

Re-inventing yourself may be the greatest of all-time survival tactics– befitting of small business and professional practice owners in tough economic times– and it beats trying to sidestep” the odds — reality!

In case, you had some fool idea that the economy’s getting better, by the way, HA!

Reports today of findings by The Bureau of Economic Analysis are alarming to say the least.

They translate to the fact that one (1) out of every three (3) adult Americans now exists 100% on some form of government handouts of others’ hard-earned tax-dollars.

1 out of 3! Yikes! Why work?

This whole re-distribution of wealth thing isn’t such a bad idea. Let others work to support me so I can lay around watching TV. I never cared much about achieving my potential anyway.

Besides, America has a whole eleven percent more to go to be as bad off as the pathetic 44% welfare state of the UK. And we’ve even got free healthcare coming down the road. Imagine! Free everything! Ain’t Socialism great?

And we can just keep printing money in Washington and doling it out to all of us who need it so we can get our no-more-work-to-live entitlements, right?

                                                                 

Hey, if you’re visiting this blog, you are surely not among those I speak of. You have drive and ambition and a realistic sense of responsibility. You will do what you have to to stay out of that welfare mentality abyss. But we know the runaway fuel prices will send all other costs, including food, right through the roof.

So survival may mean giving serious consideration to re-inventing yourself. You’re a fine artist and no one is buying expensive art these days? Paint smaller, less-expensive pictures; do your own framing; try commercial design work; cartooning?

You’ve made a living as a management trainer, but companies think training programs today are an unnecessary expense. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, but you won’t win that battle.

Instead, switch gears and offer your skills as a consultant to strengthen and/or negotiate separation of partnerships; serve as a mentor for next-generation family business takeovers; teach adult school courses at the community college; throw in with an existing online training entity; write a guidebook.

You’ve always written stodgy business plans and annual reports. Set yourself free and use those skills to start writing website content and news releases.

I visited a religious items store today that has a packing/shipping business. It used to be a packing/shipping store that had a religious items business. Fuel costs are raising shipping rates and people are doing their own packing. And who doesn’t need religion? 

                                                           

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 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]
Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals. God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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Mar 06 2011

Startups and Expansions <--NOW?

GOTTA HUNKA SPUNK?                                                                                                                               

NEGATIVE REALITY: “In THIS economy? Nah, now’s not the time to be thinkin’ about starting or expanding a business. You’d have to be nuts! Besides it costs too much for stuff like that, and –if I were gonna do a big new push, I’d want to do it the right way, y’know? Big-time!”          

POSITIVE REALITY: There will never be enough money available to start up or expand a business the way I want to make it happen. Never. So waiting won’t matter. I’ve always believed that CONTRARY to the famous quote: 

NOTHING comes to he who waits!     

That leaves spunk . . .  

  1.  Spunk,

  2.  determination,

  3. tenacious persistence, 

  4. belief in yourself and your ideas,

  5. commitment,

  6. and a burning desire to make your ideas succeed. 

                                                  

When all six of these ingredients are front and center 24/7, odds are you will succeed by just putting your head down and charging toward the goal of making your product or service ideas come to fruition. 

When you can do that, the money you need to put things over the top will come to you from sources you least expect. Every truly successful entrepreneur will attest to this. If you doubt it, then consider these two points:

  • If you have doubt, then you do not have all six criteria (noted above) going for you. Back off and shore up the weak spots before you go charging off. 

  • If you are close to having the six criteria above, but still have a smidgen of doubt, talk with someone who has been successful as an entrepreneur, someone who started a successful enterprise on the proverbial shoestring, and you will hear back the exact same kind of chatter.                                           

In other words, people who worry about their ideas making money will not make money; they will, instead, make worry. 

Those who turn their backs on the making money goals and focus their energies instead on getting their ideas to succeed, will make money. 

Weird, huh?  Perhaps, but it’s true.

                                                     

I have helped over 500 successful businesses and business expansions to get started. I have never seen a single exception to this thinking.  I’m sure there must be some somewhere, but not in my experience. 

You can take advantage of my experience if you’re thinking about launching a business or expanding one. For a modest consulting fee, I will serve as your temporary coach and advisor until you get things off the ground. I work with clients by phone and computer and occasionally, when realistic and appropriate, personal visit. 

You can tap into what I have learned the hard way and spare yourself considerable stress and expense. 

If you’re interested, call me direct at 302.933.0116, and let’s set a time to talk. No fee. I’ll give you 20-30 minutes to get me interested.

If you can’t afford me or I can’t help you personally, I’ll steer you in the right directions –as a courtesy– because my life’s mission is to help small businesses succeed.                                                                                                        

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 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]
Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals. God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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Mar 03 2011

We, Dear White House, Are Watching!

There are 30 million of us,

                                            

and we know better!

                                                                                    

 

Through your manipulated mainstream media mouthpieces –specifically all the TV networks (except Fox), public radio, and most major newspapers– you and your union-thug cronies can talk until you’re blue in the face trying to convince us all that the economy has turned.

We know better.

                                                                                     

We are the 30 million catalysts of America’s society and economy who own and run small businesses.

We see the truth. We are not stupid. We know the economy has not turned.

In spite of all your empty claims and false promises, we know this is only the beginning.

We are watching

                                                             

. . . the gas pumps guzzle our wallets! While you cheer the rising prices to “urge more prudent energy spending,” we are paying more to ship and transport less. (And forget about pleasure travel!)

Are you truly so naive as to think that preserving obscure wildlife species (like spotted owls?) that barely even inhabit America’s vast oil-rich tundras to start with, could possibly be more important than our nation’s self-sufficiency and long-term human survival?

How much longer do you think you can continue to cultivate our nation’s dependency on Arab oil supplies when there’s more than enough in the U.S. to be able to cut those ties completely?

Let we whose lives your decisions are impacting make those choices for ourselves and our own grandchildren.  

                                                         

We are watching

                                                                        

. . . food prices soar. We are eating (and feeding our families) less healthy more affordable meals in order to cut costs. Food costs will continue to rise as Arab-imported oil costs rise.

At some point, your defiance will shut down the shipping industry, and the rest of our industrialized nation will get flushed away in its wake. No? Then prove it. At the very least explain it! 

Your creeping socialism power-craze has overtaken the reality of America’s survival. Your misguided actions are succeeding at snuffing out the very spirit of entrepreneurship that has made America great! 

We are watching

                                                              

. . . your tax dollar handouts go to bungling corporate giants who contribute not one iota to new job creation.

We are watching

                                                                             

. . .  unnecessary useless jobs be “created” in government so you, the bosses, can step back and smile and orate and snap your suspenders and gloat about all the new jobs being created.

Those meaningless jobs accomplish nothing except increase the already-catastrophic deficit that you have had the power to fix by putting an end to your administration’s reckless spending. You have instead opted to usher in a state of chaos and convulsiveness that tears at the very fabric of American life and America’s families.

Exaggeration? Oh, how we wish that were the case.  

Evidently, the news has somehow escaped you that America’s 30 million small businesses account for the vast majority of new jobs (97.7% by some estimates!). 

It must be hard to accept and act upon that fact when you’re deliriously busy spending the tax-dollars extracted from those same small businesses, and using them to bail out the dark corners of corporate incompetency.

Adding insult to injury, you’re using our hard-earned tax-dollars to secure and pay back voter support by urging we cave in to gluttonous union demands. You’re trying to improve education by increasing (already outrageously high) teacher benefits? Do people perform better because they’re paid more? That’s a new one.

Isn’t it bad enough that small business will be paying through the nose for ten years just to cover your inept healthcare plan that simply cannot achieve the ends you think the means are designed for?

Okay, maybe these questions won’t get answered, but the small business owners and managers of America will have to be answered. The political rug you’re trying to sweep us all under won’t hide 30 million self-starters. 

We are watching, and soon

                                   

(11/06/12) we will be acting!

                                                                      

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 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]
Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals. God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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Feb 27 2011

$tep it up with creditor$! $tart communicating!

Talk out busine$$ obligation$.

                                              

Creditors chase excuses-filled 

                                            

non-communicators hardest!

                                                                                              

     Yes, these are hard times.

And maybe you’ve let some payments slide.

                                                                                

Perhaps the warning notices have been turned over to a collection agency, and next will be the lawyers, and then –in spite of all the delay tactics of ignoring mailings and not taking collection calls– you lose!

How do I know? I’ve been on both sides of it a few times in my life. So, from practical, hard-nosed experience: most reputable creditors will generally treat you respectfully if you treat them respectfully.

By NOT hiding, cowering, and making excuses, by facing up to your obligations and taking the initiative to communicate and trying to work things out, you, as a debtor, will ALWAYS get treated better.

                                                                        

You are also more likely than not to be given leniency simply because you picked up the phone to present your situation truthfully. Sooner is always better than later, but It’s never too late to try.

Steer yourself clear of ever discussing other debts and/or other payback arrangements. No one wants to hear that you’ve dealt with some other bill collector before facing her or his company’s music. But be as straightforward as possible in owning up to and acknowledging the obligation in question.

No need to feel awkward, embarrassed, inferior, intimidated, or bloody-knuckled.

In business, everyone owes something to some one.

                                                                   

If it’s been making you crazy, stop yourself in your tracks, take some deep breaths, and take the initiative to establish contact with the creditor.

Call. Ask to speak with the supervisor of the person who you end up with, regardless of whether it’s a “Customer Service” rep or a VP. Get as far up the ladder as you can.

Explain your circumstances the way you would like a problem-paying customer/client/patient of yours to do. Wouldn’t you really rather have a person or business that owes you money take the lead and call you to (briefly) explain the circumstances and offer some kind of payment plan –even if it’s ridiculously low– instead of hide in the shadows and not return your calls?

Well?

                                           

Don’t make payment problems bigger for your creditor than you would want debtors to make for you. The consequences of not working hard at communicating with those you owe are not worth it.

You are NOT going to win the lottery. Stop dreaming! You are NOT going to make that gargantuan sale you’ve been hoping for, for two years. You are NOT going to inherit millions from your estranged father-in-law. NOT.

Tell it like it is. Pick up the phone and –if it’s local– ask for a meeting. If it’s long-distance, ask for someone who can help you negotiate a payback arrangement you can afford. And do NOT try to use emails to negotiate.

Be sincere. Be truthful. If you are both of these things, you need not feel like you are approaching the issue “hat in hand” so to speak. There’s a time and place for humility, and a time and place for straightforwardness. This is the latter!

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“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!”   [Thomas Jefferson]

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

One response so far

Feb 24 2011

The $200 Fill-up!

$200 Fill-ups?

                                         

No joke, business owners!

                                    

Obama pushes for $8 a gallon.

                                        

Do the math. 

                                                                                               

Unable to succeed at squashing America’s entrepreneurial spirit and controlling small businesses and professional practices –though certainly not for lack of trying– the Obama Administration is now making the biggest mistake of its (hopefully half-over with) life.

Mr. Obama is quietly seeking to drive the price of gas to

$8 per gallon.

Average gas tank capacity means that

a fill-up will cost $200!

                                                             

Crushing not only the travel freedom of the general public, $8 per gallon gas rates will put many of America’s 30 million small businesses out of business. Imagine the financial paralysis that will set in when shipping and delivery costs are doubled.

Who could think the skyrocketing fares of air travel, air cargo, taxicabs, buses, and every conceivable type of personal and commercial truck shipment will not drastically impact small business and professional practices.

Do we even want to consider the impact

on emergency services expenses?

                                                                  

Why, you might ask, would anyone (let alone Mr. Obama) be looking to undermine even further the only real opportunity that exists to restore health to America’s economy: small business job creation?

See if you can follow this path of crooked reasoning exposed in last night’s Washington Times Editorial. Here are some excerpts:

A perfect storm of foreign and domestic policy choices by the Obama Administration has paved the way for European-style energy prices to arrive on these shores. Far from being alarmed, President Obama sees the prospect of $8 a gallon gas as an opportunity.

When it comes to energy, the White House has sought to augment government controls to prevent the “long-term threat of climate change, which if left unchecked could result in violent conflict, terrible storms, shrinking coastlines and irreversible catastrophe,” in Mr. Obama’s words. Making energy more expensive is exactly what the administration’s “cap and trade” scheme is meant to do.

The theory is that pricier power will be used more frugally, which in turn will appease Mother Earth into blessing us with cooler weather. Mr. Obama expressed the same outlook in May when – with oil at $61 a barrel – he signed a memorandum dictating to automakers the kinds of cars they will be allowed to sell. At the time, Mr. Obama noted with trepidation, “The impetus for action would fade when gas prices started to go back down.”

It’s not possible for domestic production to relieve the pressure from international uncertainty. Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats have blocked drilling in places like Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in millions of acres of federal lands and in offshore locations. Mr. Obama even took advantage of the BP oil disaster to shut down operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

Mr. Obama points to the small amount of oil currently produced at home to conclude, “We can’t drill our way out of the problem.” That’s only a true statement as long as the current policies place 67 percent of America’s reserves off-limits.

The events unfolding in Egypt, Libya and throughout the Middle East are beyond American control but not outside our influence. Fear and uncertainty drive oil prices higher, and Mr. Obama has done nothing to restore confidence that the United States will act firmly to promote stability in the region.

Instead of addressing these concerns openly, pledging support for the remaining U.S. allies or deploying military assets to show that this country will not allow an interruption in the flow of goods through the Suez Canal, Mr. Obama has calibrated his tepid response to ensure no Muslim mob is offended.

We’re now paying the price for weak leadership, but it’s about more than just paying a few bucks more at the local Chevron station. Every product and service depends on the price of oil and the price of electricity. The vast majority of goods hit the shelves after being transported by aircraft, ships and trucks powered by fossil fuels.

That’s why, as economists note, there is a direct correlation between the number of miles vehicles travel in a year and the nation’s Gross Domestic Product. Unless there’s an immediate U-turn in the domestic and international agenda, we’re headed for rough economic times.

                                                                             

BOTTOM LINE: Should stampeding gas price increases be a concern of small businesses and professional practices?

If you’re not sure, I respectfully suggest you consider re-reading the nine excerpted paragraphs above.

If you disagree, you are surely a few quarts low on entrepreneurial spirit, or you are so rich that a couple of thousand extra dollars a month to keep your gas tank filled makes no difference.

If you agree, remember there’s strength in numbers, and there are 30 million of us.

Well? 

  

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“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!”   [Thomas Jefferson]

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

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4 responses so far

Feb 21 2011

Business Message for Gov. Walker

If you’re not in the toy business,

                                                  

 and play games with people  

                                    

who act like children

                                  

 . . . you lose!

 

 

Government in virtually any form is hardly a showcase for business leaders. Time and again, and especially with the current Administration, government has proven itself incompetent of thinking and acting prudently or productively. This latest round of childishness that the White House and the Democratic union-vote sheep in Wisconsin are displaying, is pathetic and irresponsible.

Just imagine employees in your company deciding they don’t agree with your hard-line stance against raises at a time when the very survival of your business is at stake and, instead of sitting down to talk about it with you, they pile onto buses and leave town.

Are you kidding me?

Does that sound like a three-year-old temper tantrum or what?

                                              

God Bless you, Governor Walker for having the courage to stand up against this intimidation and lunacy. Wisconsin will rise again, but only after those who choose to play child’s play grow up and face the reality that they are part of the problem and not part of the solution. Those who you represent should be proud of your stance. You are trying to save your State from economic catastrophe.

You are 100% correct that the people of your State come first, and that they will decide, not the greedy unions or Mr. Obama’s thugs. There isn’t an entrepreneurial American business on Earth that wouldn’t agree. 

  • We know from almost all forms of psychotherapy that when those you are trying to communicate with as adults will only respond as children, you can get down into their playground mentality, become one of them, and accomplish nothing.

  • Or, you can rise above them and act parental, which will create added havoc and ignite either explosions or implosions.

  • Or, you can stay persistently adult until they finally come full circle, accept their foolish waste of time and energy as an aberration, and join forces, or at least agree to disagree, and move on. And, this is the only avenue that holds promise of productive solutions.

                                                           

Union mandates are far beyond the point of reasonability and the infantile attitudes of it’s-my-ball-and-I’m-taking-it-and-going-home-Wisconsin-State-Legislators (who have fled from their responsibilities to parts unknown) must both be quashed.

Governor Walker needs to continue to stand firm, and deserves the support of all 30 million of America’s small business owners and operators.

If Wisconsin’s radical leftist and union leader demands succeed, and added State financial support is handed over to e.g., $90,000-a-year-salaried teachers at the cost of collapsing the State, everybody loses.

Can it possibly be that partisan politics is more important than the well-being of Wisconsin families and businesses? Is building a Democratic power base more important than Statehood survival?

Please, those of you who provoke fights and then run from them: Stand up for those who have supported you, not those who give you pretend pledges!

Reality is that your State, like many, is in serious trouble. Meeting union demands is not a solution. Acting like adults and thinking like entrepreneurs will at least get you to the solutions table.

Stop worrying about losing votes and losing union support, and start realizing you hold the key to your childrens’ and grandchildrens’ future. You’ve made your points, now turn it around.

NOW turn it around.

Wull you give the rest of the country reason to applaud you

or cause to spit on an empty trail that you’ve left behind!

 

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YOUR FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO THIS BLOG, CLICK: Posts RSS Feed

www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!”   [Thomas Jefferson]

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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