The adopted governing budget of the US, for starters.Originally Posted by Alan
The adopted governing budget of the US, for starters.
Last edited by redfox; 8-30-12 at 11:24pm.
REAL small business??? Are you serious? What's the cutoff at which point you aren't REAL any more? Ten employees? Three? Or is it a scam to screw the government out of their fair share of your work if anyone except mom & pop work in the business? Why is it so critical to you that the owner is the one making your doughnut or turning the wrench?
DW and I sold our business in 2007. It had been our focus for the better part of 20 years. Blood, sweat and tears, all of it. Through recessions eating beans every night and mortgaging our house to the hilt to make payroll and through the boom years eating steak and driving a nice truck (that you bet your bum was a company vehicle). We averaged around 65 employees in the later years, got as high as 90 a few times. We also subcontracted enough work to provide around 30 jobs through other companies. That is only my guess, but I do think its a reasonable estimate. That means our little mom & pop was responsible for creating about 100 jobs. It was a small business and it damn sure felt REAL to me.
$250,000 is a stupid figure. Stupid. It was plucked out of a hat as a figure that sounds like a huge sum to the bulk of the President's supporters. That's all. It has no basis in the real world. It's no magic line. On one side your average, but by God if you cross that line you're RICH! Such a line might exist, but it ain't at $250K. Try $10 million, its a lot more practical if you want to get things moving, but still have to have a human sacrifice to appease the electorate.
The biggest problem with this administration is that no one knows what's coming. I've said it before and get all kinds of feedback from people who are not involved with strategic planning for a business telling me that no business would ever put off hiring if they need employees just because the cost of an employee might go up. Well, yes, they will. And they do. And they still are. Maybe some day those people will sit down and try to figure out why unemployment is at 8.4% when so many other economic indicators are favorable to growth. Creaker was spot on, businesses exist to make money for the owners. Hiring is expensive. If you hire someone and then have to let them go because the burden changed or the market changed you lose money. It's worse than if you never hired them in the first place. That's why companies don't do it. Anyone with a frugal mindset should easily be able to grasp the concept. If business owners know what's coming, regardless of how good or bad it is for them, they can plan accordingly. When they don't even have a good guess what's coming planning becomes impossible. There are too many variables so the only prudent option is to stay where you are and wait for a clearer path to emerge. The reason Mr. Obama lost the support of the small business community because they've been waiting 3 1/2 years for that path, but there still isn't one.
Where did you get that notion ANM? What's horrible would be working for someone else. To lose the independence, the relative autonomy? No thank you. Dying rich has nothing to do with it. Of all the business owners I know (and its a lot) almost none of them started up with the idea of getting rich. Besides, I have every intention of dying broke.
You're exactly right, you'll probably never understand just like I will never understand how a person can go to the same place and do the same thing day after day. And for a boss that may not know any more than they do! We’re just wired differently, that’s all. The world needs all kinds of people so there is no right or wrong, only what's right for you. The real beauty is that neither can survive without the other. If it was the difference between feeding my family and watching them starve I would work for anyone doing anything. Fortunately that is not the case so you could not pay me enough to work for someone else. An office might as well be a prison cell for me.
The difference between us in terms of the economy is that I will create a job and you will fill a job. As I said above, one isn't better than the other, but the US right now has 8.4% of its workers out there waiting to fill jobs that are not being created. We need to establish an environment where it makes sense for people to take on the risk to start or expand their business so we can get more of the people who want to work back to work. No recovery can be complete without that, but so far that environment has not been created.
Gregg, I agree that this environment does not now exist. But, seriously, does the current GOP have a viable solution?? Ryan's pie-in-the-sky budget plan makes a great soundbite. But when voters figure out it's their pockets which will be picked now and in the future, it will be Bowles-Simpson all over again -- maybe some decent ideas there, but politically unpalatable. If programs like Medicare and Social Security are gutted, even on a sliding scale, the next sound we'll hear is voters' wallets snapping shut so they can save the money needed to fund their own retirement and elder-care medical coverage. <-- not such a bad thing in itself, but in an economy that depends on consumer spending, a move in the wrong direction. Retreading tax cuts? Hasn't worked since Saint Ronald proposed it 30 years ago. Why do the Republicans expect a different result this time?
You know the problem is a lot more complex than the usual Republican memes of gutting regulations on business or declaring that fraud exists (in government as well as the public). Landing customers is going to take a steady economy in which people do not fear that their supports are going away. We've already learned that our real-estate holdings are pretty much useless now. The market promises unsteadiness for the near-term future (given the uncertain situation in the EU and big bills due in the U.S.), so that's not an area people feel comfortable with. So exactly what are the Republicans going to do to smooth that road? Scare people with the loss of what little is left?
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington
I don't see how destroying what's left of unions, eliminating the minimum wage, laying off thousands of government employees, diverting monies to the richest among us, privatizing nearly all aspects of the commons (leading inevitably to increased costs to maximize profit), and reducing the old and the poor to even more straitened circumstances could possibly stimulate the economy. Can anyone explain it to me?
Gee gregg, when you get to the point where you can predict the future, you let us know, will ya? I had no idea the republicans owned a crystal ball and could guarantee you for certain what the future holds! Who knew?
Meanwhile we'll just keep trying to wrap our brains around 'I pay very little taxes yet I need a huge tax break because of my tax burden' and 'Sure, someone who makes $250,000 in profit, ($500,000 for a couple) is barely scraping by' and 'Even though that new employee might bring me $10,000 in profit, I won't hire him because he might cost me $100 more than last year, cause I'm such a smart business person, and all' and 'business people need all these tax breaks because they take risks and all, but ain't gonna hire anyone no way no how cause they can't be for certain sure just how the future will go, even if it's going ok now'.
Whew! All these mental gyrations are giving me a headache!
And, I didn't say they weren't real, I said they weren't small! I know you don't exactly live in a reality based society (Gee, I haven't seen that in MY neighborhood...racism, sexism, homelessness, bankruptcy due to illness, etc..) but if you would just look at some figures on the average household income across the nation, I think you'd be surprised at who is average, and/or struggling, and who is fairly well off. I'm just saying...
I think you have to break it down to whose economy you are talking about - many groups would be worse off, but I expect some would do quite well.
There's profit in privitization but as for the rest at a certain point I wonder if it's better for preserving the status quo just to throw the masses a bone here and there. Things like medicare and social security are partly paid for by employees anyway.
Trees don't grow on money
I never said any Republican has an idea that I think is viable because I'm not completely convinced they do. What I am completely convinced of is that the current administration has no idea how to foster such an environment. That leaves me with a choice of voting for a candidate that is known failure on this point or a candidate that might also fail, but at least has a background that will give his administration a chance to succeed. I'm tired of having to roll the dice, but I'm more tired of failing. ETA: YMMV.
Last edited by Gregg; 8-31-12 at 4:46pm.
It would be impossible for me to overstate the lack of understanding of the issue you just demonstrated with that comment. It is apparently impossible for some to understand that other people aren't comfortable risking what they've worked for if they can not at least be certain the rules won't change. Perhaps that is because most people aren't wired to take a risk under any circumstances anyway so they think the rules really don't make much difference in their lives.
Such a waste. You know only as much about my neighborhood, or anything else about me, as I've shared here. Rather than respond to your insults with righteous indignation or make some crack about getting back on your meds (as provided by the great Obama, of course) I will only say that I feel pity for anyone so blinded by an ideology that they have completely closed off their mind to any other possibility. Enjoy the Kool-Aid.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote