A Wealth Gap or a Crisis of Confidence?

Winston Churchill once wrote: “You don’t make the poor richer by making the rich poorer.” If he were sitting in the House chamber during President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address, Churchill would have been flabbergasted by the contention that a “wealth gap” was the cause of the nation’s woes. It’s not a wealth gap that is slowing recovery – it’s a crisis of confidence in Obama’s ability to lead the nation. Some of history’s most accomplished leaders, like Churchill, got their inspiration from time honored thought leaders and statesmen. In his State of the Union Address, Obama got his inspiration from the Occupy movement, and catered to this largely discredited group. This agenda is fraught with peril. It is clear that rather than face the lingering... Read More

Five Hot Spots That Have Obama Running Scared

As we race toward the November election, you can be sure that President Barack Obama and his disciples will be ticking off his perceived accomplishments in his bid to win re-election. He will attempt to position himself as the tax-cutting, regulation-busting friend of small business. Nothing could be farther from the truth. If you listen closely, he will side-step the priorities he failed to accomplish in his three years in office, and won’t accomplish in 2012. They all have one thing in common: They are needed like blood to resuscitate a hemorrhaging economy where flat lining job creation is beyond the hope of recovery anytime soon. Here are the five issues he must address to create jobs but will fail to act on. 1. Using tax reform as a competitive advantage When a company spends... Read More

US Has Its Work Cut Out in Revamping Tax Code

If you spent 6.1 billion hours doing something, you would think you would have created something most ingenious. Ironically, that’s how much time American taxpayers spent this year fumbling through stacks of confusing IRS forms. Americans spend about $300 billion a year in tax-preparation costs traversing a mind-bursting 3.4 million word tax code. The net effect of this archaic tax system is not only its compliance cost, but it ultimately punishes companies for being successful and discourages them from hiring. Taxing our corporations and businesses is a giant hoax. Taxes and tax related costs paid by our companies are simply passed on to the consumer. Those being impacted most from corporate taxes are the poor who have less to spend. The best way to protect the poor (and the middle... Read More

5 Things That Must Happen in 2010 To Spur American Entrepreneurship: The Year of Engagement

Although encouraged by President Obama’s pledge during the State of the Union Address to double exports and open up new markets, we are not seeing any progress toward meeting these critical objectives. I wish he was being sidetracked by job creation –but that is not the case either.  Once again the Obama administration has failed to understand that the key to stabilizing the economy and job creation rests with supporting the nation’s entrepreneurs, especially small business exporters.  As a public service, let me humbly suggest that there are five initiatives that must be considered in 2010 to move this country forward. 1) Pass the three pending Free Trade Agreements Did you know that for every dollar invested in exports by small and mid-size companies  through export... Read More

Recovery Cover Up: Temp Jobs

When talking about truth, are we really going to believe that jobs are being created because the economy added 162,000 jobs in March? The truth is that most of those jobs were temporary positions with the Census Bureau. Those aren’t jobs. Those are federal paid internships. And by this fall, those jobs will disappear. You know what other jobs will be disappearing? State jobs, because states need to shed workers to deal with huge budget deficits. Already in March, state and local governments shed 9,000 jobs. Come on folks, the government doesn’t create jobs. We all know that private-sector temporary jobs won’t become permanent unless employers see steady economic growth. And that’s not something we’ve seen with the ineffective stimulus plan. We all know the solution. We talk about... Read More

When You Lose This Game, Everyone Loses

Let’s say your favorite football team announces that they have fired the entire coaching staff. In their place, they have hired a staff where only one new coach has ever played football. The rest just followed the team by watching games from the safety of their couch. Would you be looking for a Super Bowl appearance this year? But suppose the country elected a president whose primary job was to jumpstart the economy by creating jobs –especially in the small business sector where 75% of new jobs are created. Wouldn’t you expect him to surround himself with a staff with deep business experience that have actually run companies and understood the dynamics of P&L? Then folks, welcome to the Obama Bowl. A recent study took a look at past administrations to identify those US presidents... Read More

What You Should Know About Universal Healthcare Will Make You Sick

We’re on our way to universal healthcare. And on the fast road back to 20th century medicine. If you’re still naive enough to believe that consumers in England and Canada are basking in low cost universal health benefits, a recent sobering study by the United Nations International Health Organization shows that these patients are paying a steep price for their limited access to diagnoses and treatment that may actually be impacting their quality of life and in some cases, cutting their lives short. As an example, the percentage rate for US men and women who survived cancer for more than five years is 65 percent. It’s only 46 percent in England, and 42 percent in Canada. If you have diabetes in England and Canada you are out of luck. While 93 percent of US patients diagnosed with diabetes... Read More

Invisible Jobs and Shadow Unemployment

Following the Obama Administration’s proclamation that jobs are being created is like being a Ghost Buster – we are chasing invisible jobs! If there are 640,000 new jobs created under the stimulus package, as the Obama Administration contends, then they must be in the witness protection program. The latest labor figures from The Wall Street Journal suggest that if we factor in December’s loss of 85,000 jobs, then between December 2007 (when the recession began) and December 2009, there were 7.2 million fewer jobs. The paper further reports “A broader measure of unemployment, including those who have quit job hunting as well as those working part time because they cannot find full-time work, remained about the same at 17.3 percent in December from 17.2 percent in November.” In addition... Read More

Exporting Gets a Charge

With sales sluggish early this year, Ariel Ozick took a gamble. The CEO of a Newark, Del., search marketing firm, Ozick began looking for new clients in Ireland, England, Scotland and Australia. Though he recognized the challenges of working abroad, which include everything from complying with international tax laws to the vagaries of currency exchanges, Ozick needed the new business. There have already been some bumps. While the 16-nation euro-zone, which includes Ireland, began pulling itself out of the recession in the third quarter, the U.K.’s economy shrunk 0.4%. Still, there has been enough new business for Ozick’s firm, Wired Rhino, that the CEO feels he’s achieved his goal. “We wanted to diversify our revenue streams and be less dependent on one country’s... Read More

Rep. Tom Price on Healthcare

Physicians leaving the medical practice en masse, higher taxes to support a $1 trillion bill, and taking away the freedom of choice to seek care for you and your family. This nightmare scenario is on a path to becoming reality and unless Americans like us stand up for our country, this is the harsh certainty we will face. In the words of Representative Tom Price, the current health care legislation will “destroy health care in this nation.” Don’t believe it? Representative Price makes a pretty good argument, so watch for yourself… Share this article:  Read More