When a President Mocks Small Business

As an entrepreneur who has worked my entire life to create new businesses, hire more than 200 employees and risk everything I own on my companies, I join the chorus of Americans who are outraged by President Barack Obama’s recent outburst, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” This is clearly the most definitive proof that Obama does not understand small business, does not like small business and lacks the rudimentary... Read More

The Ghost of the Marshall Plan Hovers over U.S.

Try to guess who said this and when: “The modern system of the division of labor upon which the exchange of products is based is in danger of breaking down. The truth of the matter is that Europe’s requirements for the next three or four years of foreign food and other essential products — principally from America — are so much greater than her present ability to pay that she must have substantial additional help or face economic, social, and political... Read More

Union Loss Is America’s Gain

The failure of the vote to recall Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker sends two distinct messages: the majority of voters want their elected officials to maintain a government living within its means; and that unions can no longer dictate how a government operates. Now that Walker has become the only sitting governor to defeat a recall vote, many are counting on him to carry Wisconsin this November for Mitt Romney. This would be the first time Wisconsin voted for a Republican... Read More

Overregulation and Job Creation Can’t Work Together

Several weeks ago, I wrote that as of 2008, small businesses faced an annual regulatory cost of $10,585 per employee, according to an SBA regulatory impact study published two years ago. The Office of the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration estimates that the annual cost of federal regulations in the United States increased to more than $1.75 trillion in 2008. On the heels of this data, I came across a 2009 study from the California State University’s... Read More

Rescuing the Lost Generation

With 25 million unemployed or underemployed Americans, there’s a segment of the population that is generally being ignored: today’s youth. The unemployment rate in April of this year for 20- to 24-year-olds is 13.2 percent. According to a Pew Research Center study completed in December of 2011, the share of young adults aged 18 to 24 currently employed of 54 percent is the lowest since the government began collecting data in 1948. And the gap in employment between the young... Read More

Compromised Secrets Compromise Job Creation

Secrets are a trust between individuals and groups. They play a role in security and building sustainable relationships. But when secrets are compromised, trust is the victim. There have been two recent situations where secrets are being compromised — both of which will compromise job creation. The first surrounds the supposed secret deliberations by the Supreme Court over Obamacare. The cost of implementation and compliance with a government controlled healthcare system will... Read More

Bernanke Is Addicted to Morphine Economics

Last week, Richard Fisher, the president of the Dallas Federal Reserve and a member of the central bank’s policy-making committee, compared Wall Street’s addiction to the Fed’s economic policy as “monetary morphine.” I coined a version of that term more than three years ago because it aptly describes how the Federal government is handling the economy. Ben Bernanke, current chairman of the Federal Reserve, is the “morphine dealer” as he continues... Read More