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30 years ago, huge corporations dominated the business world...the seismic shifts that turned America into a nation of entrepreneurs. entrepreneurship has become a popular aspiration. A September 2005 Baylor University study reports that since 1980, more than 5 million jobs have disappeared from Fortune 500 companies, while 34 million new jobs were created at small businesses. Also, the number of small businesses increased from 14.7 million in 1977 to nearly 32 million last year, according to IRS tax returns. Today, one in 12 adults is actively involved in starting a business, and more than 60 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds...

Why isn't a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs born in Honduras? I mean, why is it that creative people don't emerge in the Third World, capable of developing innovative products and building companies that market those products, create jobs, generate large profits and influence decisively the fate of this planet? What we know about human intelligence and character features is that they're disseminated more or less equitably. The Finns who created Nokia and live in an opulent paradise in northern Europe are no more intelligent than the Dominicans or the Ecuadoreans who are crushed by poverty. On the other...

In his speech in Constitution Hall this week, former Vice President and renewable energy investor Al Gore extolled a stretch goal challenging America to achieve 100% renewable power within 10 years. The quote: "Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years." And my favorite part: "When President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon and bring him back safely in 10 years, many people doubted we could accomplish that goal. But 8 years and 2 months later,...

Sunny Delight: Sunrise review laws protect entrepreneurs Jennifer Perkins, Goldwater Institute, February 27, 2008 As Ronald Reagan famously noted, “Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.” Why is it, then, that every year we see more proposed government regulations that make it harder for small businesses to open and operate? Senate Bill 1502 could help address this regulatory creep: It would require the legislature to conduct a “sunrise review” process before erecting new regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship. Sunrise reviews require proponents of a regulation to demonstrate an actual need for...

VALDOSTA, Ga., Jan. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Little Caesar Enterprises, Inc. today celebrates the grand opening of the fifth store to open under the Little Caesars Veterans Program as U.S. military veteran and Little Caesars franchisee Patricia Evans opens her doors for business at 1650 F Baytree Road in Valdosta, Georgia. "The Little Caesars Veterans Program has provided me the opportunity to transition to a new career as my family and I begin the next chapter in our lives," said Evans. "I am proud to be the first woman to open a store under this program, and I'm excited to be...

McLean, VA - Senator Fred Thompson announced today that Jack Faris, former President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, will be the National Chairman of "Small Business Leaders for Fred Thompson." "I am excited to be supporting Senator Thompson, an old friend and fellow Tennessean, because he understands the role that small businesses play in our economy. Senator Thompson's record in the U.S. Senate speaks for itself, long a supporter of lower taxes, which allow Americans to invest more in our economy, and a strong advocate for increased access and flexibility in health care and...

By almost any definition — except his own and perhaps those of his neighbors here in Silicon Valley — Hal Steger has made it. Mr. Steger, 51, a self-described geek, has banked more than $2 million. The $1.3 million house he and his wife own on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean is paid off. The couple’s net worth of roughly $3.5 million places them in the top 2 percent of families in the United States. Yet each day Mr. Steger continues to toil in what a colleague calls “the Silicon Valley salt mines,” working as a marketing executive for...

From the billions of documents that form the World Wide Web and the links that weave them together, computer scientists and a growing collection of start-up companies are finding new ways to mine human intelligence. Their goal is to add a layer of meaning on top of the existing Web that would make it less of a catalog and more of a guide ? and even provide the foundation for systems that can reason in a human fashion. That level of artificial intelligence, with machines doing the thinking instead of simply following commands, has eluded researchers for more than half...

Happy Labor Day: We're All Workers! by Edward Hudgins The Atlas Society & Objectivist Center ehudgins@objectivistcenter.org When Congress declared Labor Day a national holiday in 1894 it marked not only a celebration by workers but a division of Americans into groups often seen as opposed to one another. The day grew out of a desire to get governments to force employers to offer certain terms of employment to workers. The first Labor Day parade took place in 1882 in New York and was organized by Peter McGuire who helped found the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions. The "labor"...

See for example this thread first. I ask you all, "What's in a name?" And I'm NOT talkin' Valerie Plame Celebrating the life behind the GINSU knife Marketing is the name of the game!

    Style sells An 11-year-old Minneapolis boy understands the meaning behind "dress for success." For the past three years, Ethan Esparza has run a lemonade stand from his grandmother's front yard, wearing a suit and tie almost daily. "When the people saw me, they just really thought it was cute," Esparza said. "I got a lot of money, so I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll wear a suit every time I do a lemonade stand.'" Charging a quarter a cup plus getting tips, a good day nets him $40, compared to the $5 he made the day he just wore a T-shirt....

Creating a money-making rationale for private space ventures—be they public space travel, orbiting hotels, low-cost rocketry, a space junk collection service, or even a lunar power and light company—such enterprises must be grounded in first-order business basics. Over the decades, several entrepreneurial space firms have come and gone, their vision getting too far ahead of business reality, but there are encouraging signs that private space ventures are reinvigorating—as well as agitating and disrupting—customary models of space commercialization. That’s the message to be heard at Space Billionaires: Educating the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs, a Thought Leader Forum being held April 4...

WASHINGTON, March 15, 2006 – The organization that helps veterans become entrepreneurs by hooking them up with national franchises and contracts with industry and the federal government celebrated its fifth anniversary yesterday with an open house at the Department of Veterans Affairs here. Scott F. Denniston (left), director of the Veterans Affairs Center - part of the Department of Veterans Affairs -- chats with Danny M. Cobb, who opened his new company, Meridian Solutions, in Frederick, Md., last month. The conversation took place March 15 during the center's fifth anniversary celebration at Veterans Affairs headquarters in Washington, D.C. Photo...

PEORIA, Ill., Feb. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- One of Caterpillar Inc.'s (NYSE: CAT - News) founding fathers is being recognized for his ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit with induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. At a news conference today in Washington, D.C., the Hall of Fame announced it is posthumously honoring Benjamin Holt for ushering in the modern era of mechanized farming and construction with his "Traction Engine" (Patent #874,008). Holt's invention was inspired by the plight of California farmers who found wheels ineffective in preventing heavy equipment from sinking into the soft, muddy soil. Holt designed a track-laying system...

NEW YORK (FORTUNE Small Business) - Many entrepreneurs start companies to get rich. Some want to be famous. Others just can't work for anyone else. Bart Azzarelli, 57, launched his Florida pipeline-construction company because, he says, God told him to. Azzarelli's organizational chart shows God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit at the helm of Dallas1 Construction & Development (http://www.d1cd.com), a Tampa-based business that grossed $27 million last year. The title on his business card is ambassador for Christ.

NEW YORK, NY, United States (UPI) -- U.S. entrepreneur Ron Popeil says he has made more than $100 million selling spray-on hair, his rotisserie and the Pocket Fisherman on infomercials. 'I`ve been on TV every day for the past seven years; in those years, I`ve spent more than $300 million on air time for my rotisserie alone,' he told the December issue of FHM. 'My best sales hour was probably $500,000 on (cable`s) QVC. The numbers for selling retail on TV are much larger than wholesale. Sell $7 million rotisseries with a retail price of $200 and you`ve got a...

Nothing evokes Silicon Valley's can-do spirit better than a garage. Apple was born in a garage. And Google spent some of its formative time in such a structure, normally reserved for cars, bikes, tools and such. But when it comes to famous valley garages, none has captured the imagination of the would-be engineer-entrepreneur better than a nondescript structure behind a house on Addison Avenue in Palo Alto. This is the garage where David Packard and William Hewlett began one of the world's most revered technology companies. Construction crews have been busy working to restore the house at 367 Addison Ave....

The next book on my reading list is "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown, author of "The Da Vinci Code." Before I even crack the spine, though, I have a question: Is this a novel about cracking the mystery of high-tech financing? In that version, the angels in question would be the wealthy been-there, done-that folks who provide around $50,000 in early capital to entrepreneurs. They are people like Analog Devices founder Ray Stata, who are rich enough that they are not going to get too hot and bothered if my idea for a wireless, parallel-processing coffee maker doesn't find...

I'll admit to liking the Harry Potter books, but I can't suspend disbelief any longer. The kid lives in the realm of big government, and it's interfering with my enjoyment of the Half-Blood Prince. Consider these facts about life in the wizarding world: Huge government bureaucracies: Every time another department within the Ministry of Magic is mentioned, I wonder if the real threat to Harry's liberty is Voldemort or the Leviathan government, which has a branch overseeing all aspects of wizard daily life. There's the Improper Use of Magic Office, the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, even the Department...

BUSINESs 2.OMaking It in China American entrepreneurs are overcoming cultural, regulatory, and other barriers to build fortunes in one of the greatest booms in history. Here's how they've done it, and how you can do it too.By G. Pascal Zachary, August 2005 Issue Seeing Barrett Comiskey lounging in the rooftop beer garden of Shanghai's fabled Peace Hotel at twilight, sipping his cool Tsingtao and gazing down at the hurly-burly street scene below, you may be tempted to call out, "Hey, buddy. You're dreaming." A year ago, Comiskey, 29, came to China to seek his fortune. He brought with him a Stanford...

At the Group of Eight summit this week in Gleneagles, Scotland, the leaders of rich countries will be talking about how they can aid poor countries. That's a noble mission, but a remarkable new book argues that it misses the point. Treating the poor as wards of the global economy ignores the fact that they are a vast market -- and that companies can profit right now by serving their needs. "If we stop thinking of the poor as victims or as a burden and start recognizing them as resilient and creative entrepreneurs and value-conscious consumers, a whole new world...

Hollywood's Wayans brothers, who have made several hit comedies, want to move their production facilities to the old Oakland Army Base. The proposal to develop 70 acres near Maritime Street and Grand Avenue appears before a City Council committee today. The Wayans brothers -- Keenan Ivory, Damon, Shawn and Marlon -- have produced and/or starred in the films "White Chicks" and "Scary Movie" as well as the early 1990s hit TV show "In Living Color." "Oakland stands to gain significant prestige from the establishment of a film production studio," said a report by the Daniel Vanderpriem, Oakland's director of economic...

Two California entrepreneurs are developing an IT services business plan that reads like a CIO's paradise: sharply lower IT prices coupled with easy access to software and engineering outsourcing developers just a short boat ride away. It's the "Code Boat," a plan by David Cook and Roger Green, the founders of SeaCode. Their venture calls for staffing a cruise ship three miles off the Southern California coast with customer IT specialists and then making the ship available to IT headquarters staffers through a short water taxi ride. "We're getting a good reception," said Green, a veteran software developer and executive....

"The Greatest Century That Ever Was: 25 Miraculous Trends of the Past 100 Years" is the appropriate title of a 1999 article authored by Stephen Moore and the late Julian L. Simon and published by the Washington-based Cato Institute. Let's highlight some of the phenomenal progress Americans made during the 20th century. During that century, life expectancy rose from 47 to 77 years of age. Deaths from infectious diseases fell from 700 to 50 per 100,000 of the population. Major killer diseases such as tuberculosis, polio, typhoid fever and whooping cough were virtually eliminated. Infant mortality plummeted. The 20th century...

Officials with the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank know all too well that fewer people in western Pennsylvania could mean less help for the people who really need assistance. The agency, which supplies food and assistance to needy senior citizens and children in its 11-county region, relies on help from younger, affluent residents and corporate sponsorships. "If they leave, it will leave us with clientele who need our services and the loss of the people who support us," said Iris Valanti, spokeswoman for the agency. "It's all about a balance of population. If we lose one segment of the population,...

Ancient Mayan entrepreneurs working along the coast of what is now Belize distilled salt from seawater and paddled it to inland cities in canoes, all without government control, researchers reported on Monday. They found evidence of 41 saltworks on a single coastal lagoon and the remains of a 1,300-year-old wooden canoe paddle. Their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows the extent of trade just before the Mayan civilization in that region mysteriously fell apart. "The discovery of the saltworks indicates that there was extensive production and distribution of goods and resources outside the cities...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. I just interviewed a man for all seasons and for this season for sure. He's 81 years young, and still flying and collecting open cockpit airplanes and driving around on motorcycles, while running a major national corporation. He does all of his major manufacturing in a 375,000 square foot factory in the good old USA., employing 1,500 while most of his competitors have gone offshore. He's one of those entrepreneurial, innovative geniuses that we usually associate with immigrants or second-generation Americans, yet he comes from a family that lived for generations...

NEWARK, N.J. - John Z. DeLorean, the innovative automaker who left a promising career in Detroit to develop the stainless steel-skinned, gull-winged sports car bearing his name and was acquitted of charges he planned to sell $24 million worth of cocaine to support the venture, has died at the age of 80. DeLorean died Saturday at Overlook Hospital in Summit, N.J., of complications from a recent stroke, said Paul Connell, an owner of A.J. Desmond & Sons Funeral Directors in Royal Oak, Mich., which was handling arrangements. DeLorean, whose namesake car was turned into a time machine in the "Back...

http://www.ij.org/economic_liberty/wa_hairbraiding/3_11_05pr.html Victory for African Hairbraiders Over Tangle of Cosmetology Laws Economic Liberty Campaign Prompts Changes In Washington State Cosmetology Licensing Enforcement WEB RELEASE: March 11, 2005 by Jeanette Petersen and John Kramer Seattle—Benta Diaw, a Seattle area entrepreneur originally from Senegal, Africa, waged a fight against unjust government regulation of African hairbraiders and today she won. The King County Superior Court today recognized that the Washington Department of Licensing has abandoned its efforts to require African hairbraiders to obtain cosmetology licenses. As a result of her legal challenge filed by the Institute for Justice Washington Chapter (IJ-WA), the State’s Department...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Mar. 17, 2005) Entrepreneurial businesses on the cutting edge of space developments will be featured in a focus panel at the 21st National Space Symposium, scheduled for April 4-7 at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. Veteran space consultant and former NASA Chief of Staff Mr. Courtney Stadd will lead a discussion of “Entrepreneurial Spirit” at 9:15 am on April 5. Joining Stadd on the panel will be Mr. James W. Benson, founder, chairman and chief executive officer, SpaceDev; Dr. Peter Diamandis, chairman and chief executive officer, Zero-Gravity Corporation; Mr. David Gump, president, Transformational Space Corporation LLC; Dr....

http://www.ij.org/economic_liberty/nyc_vans/index.html Ricketts v. New York City IJ Helped Open Up New York City Commuter Van Market Rather than accept public handouts after he lost his job, Hector Ricketts went into business for himself driving jitney vans. He founded Queens Van Plan, Inc., to provide much-needed reliable van service to low-income communities in New York that are isolated by inferior, expensive public transportation. Hector’s vans—and those of other small companies—not only put people to work, they take people to work. But standing in their way are the powerful New York City public transportation unions allied with opportunistic politicians and bureaucrats. Under...

Walter E. Williams John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics George Mason University Walter E. Williams, the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University, holds a B.A. degree from California State University at Los Angeles and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from UCLA. He has also served on the faculties of Los Angeles City College, California State University at Los Angeles and Temple University. He has received numerous fellowships and awards, including a Hoover Institution National Fellowship and the Valley Forge Freedoms Foundation George Washington Medal of Honor. A nationally syndicated weekly columnist, his articles...

With the Ansari X Prize won and the recent passage of the first legislation aimed at regulating commercial suborbital space flight, more space entrepreneurs than ever seem to be making their mark on the media and the Internet. The new flood of innovation and enthusiasm is certainly a welcome sign of things to come. However, it can be so easy for the unwary to be blindsided by glossy pamphlets and lavishly illustrated web sites, that one can overlook key business fundamentals—or the lack thereof. Imagination and creativity are necessary ingredients, but by themselves are insufficient indicators of space business viability....

What Profiteth It a Man?The BitPig Rant/2005.02.14 Recently, I've been reading some spirited discussion online regarding the morality (or lack of) inherent in the "Big Box Retail" model of capitalist economics. What most of it boils down to is the question "Is Wal-Mart-style capitalism an example of Christian economics in action?" I say "No, it isn't" -- and here's why. Let's say I need to buy a widget. The Wal-Mart out by the freeway is selling Chinese-made widgets for $2.50 each, while Mom and Pop's Widget Store in the old downtown area is selling American-made widgets of equal quality for...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

In south Texas, along the windswept Gulf Coast where multitudes of hurricanes have made landfall over the centuries, there are three history-filled, ahead-of-their-time counties: Galveston, Brazoria, and Matagorda. Until the early 1980s government entities, such as cities and counties, had the right of opting out of Social Security and establishing their own retirement system. This option had been provided when the Social Security Act was passed in the thirties. Galveston County in 1979 looked into this idea when then - County Attorney Bill Decker contacted Don Kebodeaux, highly successful Houston businessman, and asked him if he could devise a plan...

Private Space Triumph By Edward Hudgins Washington Director ehudgins@objectivistcenter.org Private Space Triumph! Private entrepreneurs again have triumphed! On September 29 SpaceShipOne, built by Burt Rutan's company, Scaled Composites, and financed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, completed its first flight in pursuit of the $10 million Ansari X Prize. The money was secured by private individuals and will be paid to the first private party to put a craft capable of carrying three individuals into space twice in a two-week period. Rutan's rocket had its first test flight over the 100-kilometer limit on June 21 and with the success of the...

Part hobby mecca, part Five and Dime, flea market takes its place as an 'informal economy' thrives. HILLSVILLE, VA. – Just up the hill from Mt. Airy, N.C. - the original Mayberry - tiny Hillsville, Va., is a remote mountaintop outpost on the Blue Ridge Parkway. There are a few vineyards, a musty shoe shop, a rickety diner, and a bookstore - no green Starbucks awnings or Gap stores visible for a hundred miles in any direction. But once a year, a more aggressive capitalism comes calling, as tents spring up in front yards and bank parking lots and the...

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- Confronting a grocery store with its promise to pay shoppers a bonus if they found any products with expired freshness dates, two enterprising teens turned a 7,000 kroner ($1,030) profit by loading up shopping carts with out-of-date beer they weren't old enough to buy. The boys, ages 14 and 15, got their reward despite being underage, the Oslo daily Verdens Gang reported Tuesday. To promote the freshness of its products, the Norwegian grocery store chain Kiwi offers to pay customers the retail price of any product they find that is past its "best by" date. So...

President Bush unveiled a new initiative to support minority entrepreneurship at his address to the National Urban League. Sadly, it appears that this announcement got lost in the politics of the day by a media uninterested in any of the real substantial public policy differences in this race. Imagine that. The media ignored a major substantive initiative introduced by the Bush administration. What makes this particularly troublesome is that this is a program that tackles the problems of minority economic development with a self-sustaining approach, bringing together existing non-profits with the private sector. It creates a network to provide education,...

If the historic flight of Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne this week represented a giant leap for everyman's access to space, the next big milestone already looms on the horizon. Falcon 1, an unmanned rocket built by a small company in El Segundo, Calif., is set later this year to carry an experimental satellite to orbit for the Defense Department - a historic vote of confidence in a privately financed rocket that hasn't even flown yet. Like SpaceShipOne, the Falcon was developed using money from private investors and nary a federal dollar. If it's successful, the rocket would prove that it's possible...

Years ago, when I lived in Connecticut, I was interviewed by a reporter in Honolulu over a closed satellite link. "So what's the space program done for the average man?" he asked. Without an instant's hesitation I replied, "Your job, for example." Like that dumbfounded reporter, we tend to take the benefits we've received from space technology totally for granted and wonder why we're "spending all that money in space." To begin with, the money gets spent here on Earth. It produces jobs not only for scientists and engineers, but for truck drivers and supermarket employees, for auto mechanics and...

Testimony of Charles M. Chafer given at a field hearing on "President's New Space Vision" Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation Given at a Science, Technology, and Space Field Hearing - President's New Space Vision Wednesday, February 18 2004 - 9:30 AM - The Testimony of Mr. Charles M. Chafer President, Team Encounter, LLC Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for holding this important Senate hearing in Houston and for giving commercial space entrepreneurs the opportunity to offer their valuable perspective on how the private sector and NASA may cooperate most effectively to assist in the...

When Principals Can Be Entrepreneurs, Schools ImproveDecentralization offers politically feasible reform model Written By: Lisa Snell Published In: School Reform News Publication Date: December 1, 2003 Publisher: The Heartland Institute If principals were put in charge of their individual schools and allowed to run them as small businesses, is it likely the schools would be more successful than if the schools and their resources were directed by a central office?After studying a variety of public and Catholic school systems in North America, UCLA Professor of Management William G. Ouchi concludes in a new book that decentralized school systems run more...

The Small Business Survival Committee just released its 2003 Small Business Survival Index, which ranks states according to how friendly their policies are for small business and entrepreneurship. Oregon falls close to the bottom; only eight states and the District of Columbia are worse. A $38 billion deficit helped sink California four states below us. Along the Pacific Coast, Washington is considered much more small business-friendly: it ranked near the top at number 8. The index analyzes 21 government-imposed or government-related costs that affect small businesses and entrepreneurs. These include taxes, regulations, health care costs, and state minimum wage laws....(snip)...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The future has already begun. -- Rod Bryden They don't sell tickets to the past. -- Alexander Solzhenitsyn Here in the business gulag we ponder why a story of enterprise goes sour. So the workout commences on the Ottawa Senators, and Rod Bryden has little time to convince creditors that he's the entrepreneur who should get the nod to carry the team forward, albeit without the debt load that was arranged under his leadership. Here in the gulag, we turn a jaundiced eye to such tricks, though we do note that...

If you're looking for good news about the economy, look no further than the venture capital market. Venture investing is off from its heights in the go-go years of the late 1990s. But it's still chugging along at a healthy pace. Investors have become a bit more discriminating. But there's still money out there for entrepreneurs with good ideas. And that's good news for the long-term health of the economy. These new and small firms will provide the products and ideas that will fuel future growth. Among them will likely be "the next big thing." Excerpt. Rest of article.

<p>She won't go quietly.</p> <p>That's what Lou Mitchell vowed when she heard a few weeks ago that the lease for her Etna deli would not be renewed.</p> <p>"I'm not a derelict, and I'm not going to go away," she said. While she knows that getting a new lease for Mitchell's Deli is unlikely, she is fighting for more time to properly close her business and sell the equipment, which she said cannot be done by the time the lease expires at the end of April.</p>