Free Republic

Gallup polled small-business owners (value under $20M) about their expansion plans in early January, which for some strange reason didn’t get reported until today. Among those who do not plan to hire — 85% of the entire sample — almost half of all such businesses cited expected costs from health care coverage and government regulation: U.S. small-business owners who aren’t hiring — 85% of those surveyed — are most likely to say the reasons they are not doing so include not needing additional employees; worries about weak business conditions, including revenues; cash flow; and the overall U.S. economy. Additionally, nearly...

Unemployed Americans who started businesses last year was the lowest in at least a quarter-century. In 2011, 3.3% of out-of-work Americans started businesses, compared to 4.7% in 2010. But recent start-up activity is anemic compared to 1989 when 20.3% of unemployed were starting businesses. Until 1997, start-up activity was typically in double digits. “Basically, it was not a very inviting environment for would-be entrepreneurs,” said John A. Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “While big business definitely began to reap the benefits of the recovery in 2011, conditions were not nearly as fruitful for existing small business, let along...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration's corporate tax reform plan will end "dozens and dozens" of tax breaks, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Tuesday as he defended the White House's election-year call for higher taxes on the wealthy. Within days, the administration is set to unveil a blueprint for revamping the corporate tax system aimed at leveling the playing field for all companies, which pay wildly differing levels of taxes, while lowering the top corporate tax rate. Companies are clamoring for a cut in the top 35 percent corporate tax rate but disagree about how to how eliminate...

Rick Santorum address crowd in Idaho.

DENVER — Republicans moved forward with a proposal to let businesses use deadly force against intruders, one of a handful of GOP proposals being heard Thursday aimed at expanding gun rights.

Participants in a recent shale gas energy conference held in Hobbs, New Mexico, referred to a whirlwind trip to Lea County, NM, as “exhausting” but “enlightening.” Bradford County Commissioners Doug McLinko, Mark Smith, and Daryl Miller, Susquehanna County Commissioner Mary Ann Warren and Pennsylvania state Rep. Tina Pickett were among local elected officials to partake in discussions and serve as guests on informative panels.

Dustin Kruse turned 4 in September. He has toy binoculars, a gumball machine, two toy workbenches, a set of six metric wrenches - real ones - a plastic pterodactyl that eats stuff and a little metal box where he keeps two tubes of Chapstick. He had three, but one melted. His well-stuffed bookshelf includes "The Cat in the Hat," "Green Eggs and Ham," "Pooh's Grand Adventure," "Albert the Bear" and his current favorite, "Lemonade With a Twist." He can use a tape measure to figure out how tall a Lego tower is, chalk a pool cue, read like a second-...

<p>BOISE, Idaho (AP) - Steve Appleton, the chief operating officer and chairman of Micron, has died in a small plane crash in Boise. He was 51.</p> <p>Micron spokesman Dan Francisco confirmed Appleton's death Friday. Trading in Micron stocks has been halted.</p>

This winter has brought a useful tutorial on capitalism courtesy of the media, the Democratic party and President Obama. They have illustrated for us how the depredations of profit-seekers crush American aspirations. We will be hearing much more about how Mitt Romney and his private-equity buddies at Bain Capital bought up companies and began searching for ways to return them to profitability. This might mean laying off unneeded workers, outsourcing or automating jobs. As the cliche has it, these smarty-pants consultants in their pinstripe suits are given to “ruthlessly wringing out inefficiencies,” workers be damned. Jobs — entire industries! —...

< snip > ..... If Republicans have an opening this year, it is with the white working class, a crowd the Democratic Party has been hemorrhaging for decades. Barack Obama did better than John Kerry or Al Gore with these voters, though even he earned just 43% of their vote. ..... < snip > ..... The white working class will make up as much as 55% of the vote in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. ..... < snip > ..... And so at the heart of the Santorum agenda are policies designed to give special handouts to the working class,...

More job candidates are being hired on the basis of what shows up on their social network pages, versus those one or two sheets of paper that are either emailed or snail-mailed into human resource departments.

MADISON — For regulation reform crusaders, a key battle in the red tape war was fought at the home of a name-brand furniture manufacturer in western Wisconsin. Ashley Furniture went through what some critics describe as an unnecessary regulation dance over wetlands as it moved to complete a massive factory expansion in Arcardia. “When they moved forward to get a permit to build a warehouse, they were told (the 13.5 acres) was a wetland,” recalled Dick Granchalek, president of the La Crosse Area Chamber of Commerce. “For an extended period of years, they were parking their semis on this property,...

With bodies still trapped inside Costa Concordia’s underwater tomb, Carnival (CCL: 30.48, 0.00, 0.00%) now finds itself at the heart of scrutiny only likely to rise along with the death toll. Carnival’s worst-ever wreck and one of the most high-profile incidents since the Titanic sank 100 years ago, it’s hard to imagine such a massive company blaming the disaster on a single person -- even if he did abandon ship early and steer a little too close to shore. Even worse, while Carnival has vehemently denied earlier reports that it would offer survivors a 30% discount off future cruises, instead...

In the 13 years since he suffered a string of political setbacks and quit the third most powerful job in Washington, Newt Gingrich has been busily laying the foundation for a comeback to an even grander perch. On any given day, the former Speaker of the House can be found on a chartered jet headed to Iowa to train future GOP candidates through his American Solutions group, or in Phoenix discussing ways to lower health-care costs with drug makers through his for-profit Center for Health Transformation. He might also be in Philadelphia, narrating a film produced by Gingrich Productions, or...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (CBS) — Illinois keeps falling farther behind on its debt. As WBBM Newsradio’s Regine Schlesinger reports, officially, the state has a backlog of more than $4.25 billion in unpaid bills. LISTEN: WBBM Newsradio’s Regine Schlesinger reports (listen at link) But Illinois State Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka says when one factors in other bills, the figure is closer to around $8.5 billion. Those other outstanding bills include tax refunds, employee health insurance, and bills that have not yet reached her desk. Topinka says this is extremely disappointing, since a year ago, the state sharply increased income taxes (by 67...

There's no specific, reliable number for the jobs that Mitt Romney supposedly destroyed and created during his tenure at Bain Capital, the private equity firm that he headed between 1984 and 1998. But one thing is sure-whatever jobs were lost in companies acquired by Bain, or shut down in a few cases, they were a tiny fraction of job destruction and creation in the American economy as a whole. Most people don't know that the economy destroys and creates millions of jobs every year. A monthly survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics captures the details. Called the Job Openings...

Americans are unusually dissatisfied with big government and big business. There is irony in that, because many of the solutions to major problems in the U.S. will have to come from these two sectors. Americans must rely on the organizations with which they are most unhappy, if the current economic and deficit troubles are to be resolved.A new Gallup poll shows that: Americans’ satisfaction with the size and power of the federal government is at a record-low 29% and their satisfaction with the size and influence of major corporations remains near the all-time low at 30% — making both highly...

WASHINGTON — As the housing bubble entered its waning hours in 2006, top Federal Reserve officials marveled at the desperate antics of home builders seeking to lure buyers. The officials laughed about the cars that builders were offering as signing bonuses, and about efforts to make empty homes look occupied. They joked about one builder who said that inventory was “rising through the roof.” But the officials, meeting every six weeks to discuss the health of the nation’s economy, gave little credence to the possibility that the faltering housing market would weigh on the broader economy, according to transcripts that...

Best Recession Forecaster: Robert F. DieliJanuary 12, 2012Jeff Miller Since last May I have been reviewing the record of those who forecast the business cycle. I developed a stringent list of requirements, "Jeff's Acid Test," and I frequently invited nominations. Here were the stated requirements: * Openness -- with the potential for peer review Small number of input variables. Most people do not understand that "small is good." If you have a lot of variables, it is easy to do back-fitting on a few cases. Beware. * Real-time performance. This means that you do not go back in history doing...

Burger King is testing delivery in a few Washington, D.C. area restaurants as part of a test that will include 16 restaurants by January 23. The fast food chain, however, did not provide details on the timing of a national rollout. Burger King already has successful delivery programs around the world, including in Mexico, Turkey, Brazil, Columbia and Peru, Burger King spokeswoman Kristin Hauser said in a statement.

William Adolfe Bouguereau, "Notre Dame des Anges." A long-standing lawsuit over the sale of a 19th-century painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau has been lost by New York State-based Catholic nuns who sued a Santa Fe, N.M., art dealer and a local art appraiser.In 2008, the nuns claimed that dealer Mark Zaplin and appraiser Mark LaSalle had colluded to defraud them of $1.7 million from the sale of their painting "Notre Dame des Anges," an 1889 work by Bouguereau depicting the Virgin Mary holding the Christ child.The Daughters of Mary Mother of Our Savior and St Joseph's Chapel, in Round Top,...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama said Wednesday he wants to reward companies that invest in America and eliminate tax breaks for companies that don't, and he's planning new tax proposals to do it. A day after his Republican foes competed in the New Hampshire primary, Obama sought to grab back the spotlight and underscore his focus on the economy by convening a White House forum on how to increase employment and bring back jobs that have fled overseas.

Lately, Bain founder and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has found himself in a spirited defense of the private equity industry, doing all he can to spin decades of data which confirm, without failure, that PE Leveraged Buy Outs are nothing but "efficiency maximizing" transactions whose only goal is the "maximization" of EBITDA in the pursuit of dividend recap deals, IPOs or outright sales, while loading up the company with untenable amounts of leverage. All this with a 3-5 year investment horizon, which ignores the long-term viability of a company and seeks to streamline (read fire as many as possible)...

NASHUA, N.H. — Mitt Romney, already under intense scrutiny for his leadership at venture capital group Bain, inadvertently gave his rivals new material today when he said that he likes “being able to fire people.” The remarks came during a speech to the Nashua Chamber of Commerce this morning in which he was trying to explain that he would like people to have the option to pick and choose their medical insurance and get rid of plans that don’t meet their needs. “I want individuals to have their own insurance,” he said. “That means the insurance company will have an...

IS MITT ROMNEY UN-ELECTABLE? "I know what he says. I also know what happened." -- employee thrown out of work by Mitt Romney. ABC News commentator Donna Brazile, Democratic Party strategist, claimed on ABC News after the January 8 debate that Mitt Romney will be the easiest Republican for Obama to defeat in Novemvber.The ABC News Presidential Republican Primary debate in New Hampshire on January 8, included questions about a campaign ad attacking Mitt Romney, like this: NOTE: Click on the 4 arrow symbol to ENLARGE and view in FULL SCREEN MODE. Click PAUSE to read the newspaper articles. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtV7vKDbU3A

The answer to the question of what makes America great is one upon which reasonable minds can differ. That notwithstanding, Noman imagines that many would answer it with a single word: freedom. What freedom means also varies depending on context, for instance political, moral, or of movement. In the political context, many have found Louis Brandeis's definition of privacy apt: the right to be let alone. Within bounds, we are free to pursue our own lights, make our own ways, and reap what we sow. While others may admonish, they may neither interfere nor impose. Sexual revolutionaries made use of...

States: California's in trouble. Businesses are leaving along with intellectual and investment capital and skilled workers. But rather than face up to serious problems, legislators pass silly laws. One would think that given the serious nature of the state's problems, the legislature would focus on solutions at the exclusion of all else. Instead, lawmakers — what would we ever do without them? — found the time in 2011 to trespass even deeper into Californians' personal lives. Topping off Sacramento's monument to foolishness is a law requiring children younger than 8, except for those taller than 4 feet 9 inches,

California has a new law officially designating corporate do-gooders.Starting today, California businesses can incorporate as "benefit corporations," which allows them to work for the public good as well as their shareholders.Current law generally requires California companies to put shareholder interests first. Companies that incorporate under the new law, AB 361, can look at a broader set of criteria when making financial decisions. The effect is a kind of "safe harbor" for management. A company that wants to spend additional dollars on, say, environmental safeguards, would be given legal protection against lawsuits or other moves by angry shareholders."It gives some legal...

This is the first time I think that I or RyanAir have ever been invited to a conference by the European Union. Because as most of you know, the European Union spends most of its time suing me, torturing me, criticizing me or condeming me for lowering the cost of air travel all over Europe and making life so really difficult for their favorite airlines, which as we all know like high-fare airlines, like Air France, British Airlines, and Lufthansa who must be protected at all costs because they're the future of Europe -- the future of europe lies in...

The former head of the Obama administration's auto task force says he should have pushed the United Auto Workers for steeper sacrifices in the General Motors bailout, including wage cuts. The people earning $9 a hour in a suburban Detroit GM plant would disagree. Former auto czar and wealthy Wall Street financier Steven Rattner told a luncheon in Detroit on Thursday that while the $50 billion GM bailout was successful, "we should have asked the UAW to do a bit more. We did not ask any UAW member to take a cut in their pay." He also said that "friends...

PHOENIX — A cancer survivor and former hospice nurse’s assistant is suing the Arizona Board of Cosmetology over rules she says unconstitutionally deny her the right to earn an honest living – while at the same time needlessly denying services to homebound, elderly and bedridden individuals across the state. Lauren Boice opened Angels on Earth Home Beauty, which connects the elderly, sick, and terminally ill with licensed cosmetologists. Homebound individuals desiring a haircut, manicure, or massage call Lauren, who matches them with a cosmetologist who will visit the client’s home or assisted living center. But while Lauren’s clients see her...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House rejected on Friday the latest proposal from Republicans in Congress on a payroll tax cut, saying its costs needed to be offset in a balanced away and not with budget cuts exempting the rich. "We are open to looking at other ways to pay for this, but they have to be economically responsible and fair," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "It is important that the overall package meet the standards the president has set."

Views from the Centre-Right -By: Larry Walker, Jr. - “Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.” ~Calvin Coolidge -In philosophy, especially that of Aristotle, the golden mean is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. The following links and brief excerpts are from 34 articles on income tax reform, written between November 2009 and December 2011. Authored with an independent fiscal conservative twist, the objective has been to define the golden mean, with respect to income taxes. If something catches your eye, pore over it. And if you are...

Video on Demand Live Radio Communities YouNews Latest KOMONews.com headlines Sky Metalwala's father awarded custody of daughterTrooper, officer among many crashes due to black iceKen Schram: Occupy leaders need to reassert controlInslee wants 6 gubernatorial debates with McKennaMore » Page 1 of 1 ST. IGNACE, Mich. - A top executive with Amazon.com was one of two men killed in a plane crash late Saturday in northern Michigan, officials confirmed. Coast Guard crews found the plane wreckage about noon Sunday after detecting a signal from an emergency locator beacon. On board the crashed plane was Amazon's web services director, Thomas Phillips,...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The United States is awash in gasoline. So much so, in fact, that the country is exporting a record amount of it. The country exported 430,000 more barrels of gasoline a day than it imported in September, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That is about twice the amount at the start of the year, and experts and industry insiders say the trend is here to stay. The United States began exporting gas in late 2008. For decades prior, starting in 1960, the country used all the gas it produced here plus had to import...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will offer a compromise on Monday to extend a popular payroll tax cut, a fellow Democrat said on Sunday. Appearing on the "Fox News Sunday" program, Senator Kent Conrad said Reid's proposal would cover the cost of extending the tax cut, set to expire at the end of this month, but he left it up to Reid to provide details on Monday.

Whether you’ve been watching every debate or are waiting until the field narrows, the 2012 presidential election push has gotten underway. So what will the impact be on your business? No denying, the economy will be a hot topic this go-around. And tax reform remains an integral part of any strategy to right the ship. One specific target? Corporate taxes. With good reason: The United States is well above-average in its corporate tax rates. While the international average falls around 20%, we blow that away. But maybe not for long. The candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination plan to...

In yet another wake-up call for Nevada policymakers, the state ranks in the bottom half of a new Forbes magazine list of the best states for business. Nevada ranks 36th overall and came in dead last in the subcategory of “economic climate,” which measures job, income and gross state product growth. Other factors in the economic climate analysis include the unemployment rate and the number of big public and private companies headquartered in the state. That said, Nevada ranked No. 2 on a separate Forbes list projecting employment gains, which is good news in a state enduring 13.4 percent unemployment...

From Oprah Winfrey to Steve Jobs to J.K. Rowling, entrepreneurial success stories are the stuff from which American dreams are made. Much like these famous names, the six self-made millionaires we're profiling have one thing in common: Thanks to hard work, determination and sound advice from mentors, friends and family, they've been able to build thriving businesses from the ground up. The rise to the top can be bumpy. In fact, some of the entrepreneurs we talked to were homeless during the early years of their companies. That's why they all agree that it's important to help others in need....

Old Obama campaign excuse: The economy is terrible because the GOP’s blocking my jobs bill. New Obama campaign excuse: The economy is terrible because red-staters who hate me won’t hire anyone out of spite.Tomorrow we’re eating turkey but tonight it’s red meat all the way: “Can’t afford it,� explained the employer, Bill Looman, Tuesday evening. “I’ve got people that I want to hire now, but I just can’t afford it. And I don’t foresee that I’ll be able to afford it unless some things change in D.C.�…Looman made it clear, talking with 11Alive’s Jon Shirek, that he is not refusing...

TORONTO — Hiking corporate taxes has been at the top of the agenda for the Occupy movement and Ottawa's official opposition, but a new report says they're actually falling. The study released Wednesday by KPMG International found Canada's corporate tax rate has dropped by more than 16 per cent over the last 11 years. Canadian companies are actually paying less than their American counterparts. On average, Canadian companies pay 28 per cent of their income in federal and provincial tax, well below the 40 per cent paid by American companies. But Canada's corporate tax rate is higher than Europe's 20...

Downward Wisconsin We used to make things here in Wisconsin. We made machine tools in Milwaukee, cars in Kenosha and ships in Sheboygan. We mined iron in the north and lead in the south. We made cheese, we made brats, we made beer, and we even made napkins to clean up what we spilled. And we made money.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits ticked up slightly last week after two months of steady declines. But the increase isn't enough to reverse the downward trend. The four-week average of applications, a less volatile measure, fell to its lowest level since April. The decline in the average signals that companies are laying off fewer workers. Weekly applications for unemployment aid rose 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 393,000, the Labor Department said Wednesday. It's the second increase in six weeks. The four-week average fell to 394,250. That's the eighth drop in the past nine weeks.

The U.S. economy grew by 2.5% in the third quarter which was its best performance in a year, but no one is breaking out the party hats just yet after the first half saw microscopic growth of 0.9%. Economic problems are still seemingly everywhere. Unemployment is too high at 9.1% with underemployment running at a recent 16.2%. Housing prices continue to fall. U.S. corporate income taxes remain the second highest in the world. The Greek debt crisis is not going anywhere and gridlock in Congress continues unabated. It is enough to make anyone what to scream. 10 images Photos: The...

If you have a spaceship, you might as well show it off. So let’s not be too hard on Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos for wanting folks to see his Blue Origin project’s PM-2 rocket maneuvering during a test in Texas earlier this year. Bezos posted videos of the spacecraft conducting a “short hop” test, saying the company received requests for video after posting pictures last month. You can watch on Blue Origin’s website. If you don’t have time for that, I’ll describe it to you: Nothing is happening. Wow, that’s a lot of smoke. Up, up, up … down, down...

Wall Street Analysts Everywhere Are In Agreement: THE WORLD IS ENDING Joe Weisenthal Nov. 18, 2011, 5:55 PM Image: Wikimedia Commons If you like your Wall Street analysis with a heavy dollop of rapture and Armageddon, today was the day for you. Blame the weighty issues of the day (Europe, mostly), and yesterday's big selloff for the spasm of bearishness. It started off with Nomura's Bob Janjuah. He said that any talk of the ECB saving Europe was a mere pipedream, and that if the ECB did go whole-hog buying up peripheral debt to suppress yields, then that would prompt...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House has rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would have forced Congress to balance its budget every year as a way to reverse years of deficit spending. A majority of House members supported the balanced budget measure, but supporters fell short of achieving the two-thirds majority needed to amend the Constitution. Republicans who backed the amendment said it was the only way to get Congress to put its fiscal house in order. Democratic critics said a balanced budget requirement would result in drastic cuts in Medicare and other social programs when economic downturns put the budget...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Just as the U.S. economy is making progress despite Europe's turmoil, here come two new threats. A congressional panel is supposed to agree by Thanksgiving on a deficit-reduction package of at least $1.2 trillion. If it fails, federal spending would automatically be cut by that amount starting in 2013. Congress may also let emergency unemployment aid and a Social Security tax cut expire at year's end. Either outcome could slow growth and spook markets.

Ah, back when GM ruled... As a car-crazy American kid in the late 70s, only GM cars were cool to me, except Mustang or a 'Cuda maybe. I myself had a  '75 Camaro and then a couple Firebirds, and when I was in high school, if your dad drove a new Olds Cutlass Supreme (America's best-selling car at the time) or Pontiac Grand Am/ Grand Prix, that meant you had sporty style and class- very cool. We simply weren't into imports, and Ford and Chrysler did not have fresh designs on the same level as GM in my mind... more...

Last year, a medical-technology firm called Numira Biosciences, founded in 2005 in Irvine, California, packed its bags and moved to Salt Lake City. The relocation, CEO Michael Beeuwsaert told the Orange County Register, was partly about the Utah destination’s pleasant quality of life and talented workforce. But there was a big “push factor,” too: California’s steepening taxes and ever-thickening snarl of government regulations. “The tipping point was when someone from the Orange County tax [assessor] wanted to see our facility to tax every piece of equipment I had,” Beeuwsaert said. “In Salt Lake City at my first networking event...