Free Republic

When Brazilian-born entrepreneur Eduardo Saverin, one of the founders of Facebook, renounced his U.S. citizenship, allegedly to avoid paying millions -- or is it billions -- in taxes ahead of the company's Initial Public Offering, there was plenty of indignation. Saverin was blessed with an upscale Miami upbringing, a top-notch Harvard education, and has thrived in an entrepreneurial environment created by Americans, becoming insanely rich during the Internet boom. So the question is: What does Saverin owe the United States? Is it reprehensible for him to drop his citizenship before paying his “fair” share to the government that made all...

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....

As an accountant, I have a unique vantage point to observe how entrepreneurs change their decisions based on tax policy. My focus as a business advisor is making businesses more profitable first, then dealing with the tax implications of profit. As much as I would like to focus on profit, I regularly have to “reprogram” the entrepreneur’s thinking on taxes. With new clients, I often have to overcome the advice given by their former CPA, who would inevitably advise them to buy more equipment at the end of each year to avoid paying taxes. Folks, this is just plain dumb...

I TYPED these words on a computer designed by Apple, co-founded by the college dropout Steve Jobs. The program I used to write it was created by Microsoft, started by the college dropouts Bill Gates and Paul Allen. And as soon as it is published, I will share it with my friends via Twitter, co-founded by the college dropouts Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams and Biz Stone, and Facebook — invented, among others, by the college dropouts Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz, and nurtured by the degreeless Sean Parker. American academia is good at producing writers, literary critics and historians....

“Take a look at this black belt I’m wearing people. You think anyone wants a roundhouse kick to the face while I'm wearin’ this bad boy?” It’s time for unemployed Americans to embrace capitalistic martial arts. It’s time to talk like Rex from Napoleon Dynamite. It’s time to give socialism a roundhouse kick to the face. If you aren’t already one of 14 million unemployed Americans, you’re probably concerned about joining them. The U.S. economy netted no new jobs in August. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Consequently, the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits in the first full week of September...

In terms of employment and wealth, the U.S. economy is shaped primarily by small businesses. According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses employ over half of private sector employees, pay 44 percent of the total private payroll, and have generated about 65 percent of the net new jobs over the last 15 years. The individual contributions of these business owners are also extremely important in building and sustaining an economic and social base in our local communities. Historically, small businesspeople have always contributed significant time and resources to American society by joining civic groups like Rotary or Kiwanis or...

I'm going to tell you something that Barack Obama doesn't understand. And because he doesn't understand it, our country is wasting hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when we cannot afford to waste hundreds of millions of dollars. Time and again President Obama has told us how he intends to solve our health care problems: spend money on pilot programs and other experiments; find out what works and then go copy it. He's also repeatedly said the same thing about education. The only difference: in education we've already been following this approach with no success for 25 years....

Some food truck owners near 6th Ave. say they are being forced out by the NYPD. "They are not giving us summons yet but they are shooing us away and giving out warnings. That's bad for business," said David Weber, the President of the New York Food Truck Association. Under state law, it is illegal for food trucks to park in metered spaces. "It's a 65 dollar ticket. But even more costly is if they have to move or be towed. We lose customers during the rush time," continued Weber. An NYPD spokesperson says officers will enforce the law in...

Economically, successful businessmen make the world a better place. They are essentially voted rich at the cash register poll. We pay them to add value and they reciprocate with jobs, goods and art. The top ten percent of earners pay most of America’s taxes, account for the majority of charity and half of retail sales. It is thus baffling that wealth has become such an object of derision. Even decades after communism collapsed we are inundated with Marxist agitprop. Intellectuals and politicians — teeming with a hypocritical combination of envy and self-righteousness — pontificate incessantly about the rich “not paying...

The world maybe headed for another recession, but there seems to be no better time to be a millionaire or billionaire. Global wealth hit a record $121.8 trillion high in 2010 or $20 trillion above pre-recession levels, according to a new report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG). And, the number of millionaire households jumped 12.2 percent to about 12.5 million. The trend will continue up to about $162 trillion by 2015, "driven by the performance of the capital markets and the growth of GDP in countries around the world. Wealth will grow fastest in emerging markets," says the report. There...

Never before in American politics have so few offered so little to so many. I refer to the prospective Republican candidates for next year's presidential elections, not a single one of whom elicits a response that might be mistaken for enthusiasm from the voters, the pundits, or the party's elder statesmen. There are a couple of generic governor types like Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota or Mitch Daniels of Indiana, and a long list of has-beens and never was's. But the Republicans despair of finding the man or woman who can define an alternative to a weak and waffling President Barack...

Preamble: The United States is the richest nation on the planet and yet we find ourselves mired in a long-term recovery from the Great Recession of 2008. The biggest problem affecting the greatest number of Americans is the high unemployment rate, which is not expected to return to pre-recession levels for many years. High unemployment means that many people struggle daily to find adequate food and shelter, with many losing homes to foreclosure. Business activity is adversely affected and growth is diminished. The cost to government is enormous as public safety nets are strained to the breaking point, and reduced...

At the start of the 112th Congress, my fellow Republicans and I made a commitment to turn the country’s economy around and get Americans back to work. Over the past two years in the minority, we could do little as the Obama Administration’s and Nancy Pelosi’s reckless spending increased our already massive debt by $3.5 trillion and our unemployment rate surged to ten percent. Republicans hit the ground running in January, voting to cut spending by $2.6 trillion by repealing the onerous ObamaCare law. In February, while the Obama administration reported a record-breaking monthly deficit of $223 billion, we simultaneously...

ENTREPRENEUR Jerry Kennelly is investing close to €20 million of his own money in a online e-commerce design and print venture which he hopes will have a million customers this time next year. Headquartered in Killorglin, Co Kerry, Tweak.com went live yesterday and sole shareholder Kennelly describes it as "the most significant global e-commerce application ever created by an Irish enterprise". He won’t divulge how much he has invested in the venture which he has conceived and brought to market other than saying: "We are into double digit millions." Industry sources suggest that the scale of the global operation which...

By Porter Stansberry November 18, 2010 I'd like to make you a business offer. Seriously. This is a real offer. In fact, you really can't turn me down, as you'll come to understand in a moment... Here's the deal. You're going to start a business or expand the one you've got now. It doesn't really matter what you do or what you're going to do. I'll partner with you no matter what business you're in - as long as it's legal. But I can't give you any capital - you have to come up with that on your own. I...

Which do you think is less expensive, not to mention preferable: a cure for cancer, Alzheimer's disease and diabetes, or caring for people with these diseases? Wouldn't it be better medical and public policy to direct more resources toward finding a cure for diseases that cost a lot to treat than to rely on a government insurance program, such as Obamacare, which seeks mainly to help pay the bills for people after they become ill? Isn't the answer obvious? Apparently not to many politicians trapped in an old paradigm that focuses too much on hospitals, doctors and medicines and too...

DUMFRIES, Va. - Tony Vazquez says the years he spent serving as a military police officer at Fort Belvoir prepared him to own his own pizza business. Vazquez and his wife, Shelley, are expected to open their Little Caesars franchise at 16708 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 121 in Dumfries on Thursday. “It was the discipline and teamwork I learned in the Army that made a big difference in my life,” he said. “One of the most important things I learned is that when you make a commitment, you stick to it. You must believe in what you are doing.” Tony...

Dreaming of success? Then study failure - because "oops" is the mantra of champions. That was the take-away from FailCon 2010, which brought almost 500 entrepreneurs to San Francisco's Hotel Kabuki to share and compare lessons from the school of hard knocks. "Rather than simply aspire to success, we want to share the actionable steps that can help you avoid failure," said organizer Cass Phillipps, who created the event last year. The daylong show, for which attendees paid from $50 in advance to $330 at the door, combined large panels where noted entrepreneurs discussed their philosophies of failure and smaller...

School choice, lower taxes, job creation: These, and not welfare payments, are what would really help the poor. In his autobiography, former British prime minister Tony Blair recounts the political epiphany that caused him to break with the old-style class-warfare–based Labour Party that he had grown up with. “In a sense they wanted to celebrate the working class,� he writes, “not make them middle class.� In many ways, the Obama administration and congressional Democrats appear to have the same attitude about the American poor. They talk frequently about the poor. They lavish programs upon them. (Last year the Obama administration...

U.S. Embassy sponsors Irish Muslim business conference: Imam calls for Sharia Law in all business dealings" SNIPPET: "There would seem to be a Constitutional issue involved here -- isn't the U.S. Government involving itself in promoting a religion via such a seminar? And what a surprise that that religion would turn out to be Islam. "U.S. Embassy sponsors Irish Muslim business conference: Imam calls for Sharia Law in all business dealings," by Patrick Cooper for IrishCentral.com, October 7 (thanks to Sr. Soph): The U.S. Embassy in Dublin has sponsored a seminar on Muslim entrepreneurs and business in Ireland. A main...

"Sarah Inc." has become a multimillion-dollar business, thanks to some shrewd moves by the former Alaska governor and Tea Party hero. But does that make her an entrepreneur? Our Board of Directors sounds off. When Sarah Palin burst onto the national stage in August 2008, Americans expressed a collective, "Sarah who?" Since then, she's gone on to become a vice presidential nominee, Saturday Night Live spoof, thorn in the side of liberals, bestselling author, Fox News contributor, Tea Party hero, reality TV star and proud mother of a Dancing with the Stars contestant. Today, when it comes to Palin, the...

Regulators on Friday shut down a big community bank based in Chicago that has been known for its social activism but racked by financial troubles in recent months. It was the 114th U.S. bank to fail this year. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over ShoreBank, with $2.16 billion in assets and $1.54 billion in deposits. Urban Partnership Bank, a new institution comprised of several big Wall Street banks and a private foundation, agreed to assume ShoreBank's deposits and nearly all its assets... In an unusual move, the FDIC allowed some of ShoreBank's executives to continue running the restructured bank......

Both Greece and Rome made significant contributions to Western Civilization. Greek knowledge was ascendant in philosophy, physics, chemistry, medicine, and mathematics for nearly two thousand years. The Romans did not have the Greek temperament for philosophy and science, but they had a genius for law and civil administration. The Romans were also great engineers and builders. They invented concrete, perfected the arch, and constructed roads and bridges that remain in use today. But neither the Greeks nor the Romans had much appreciation for technology. As documented in my book, Science and Technology in World History, Vol. 2, the technological society...

We Americans needed this weekend, with something to celebrate -- our independence from overseas oppressors. Indeed, the Tea Party movement is attempting to recapture the attitude of our nation’s founders toward overweening government, in this case our own. The distance from Washington to Main Street is not as great as that from Boston Harbor to the Palace of Westminster, but it is great indeed. Most Americans want to see spending reined in and taxes cut. But when the manager of a custard stand in Milwaukee suggested to Vice President Joe Biden that he would prefer lower taxes to payment for...

SNIPPET - quote: Obama's Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism speaks out against "Islamophobia" If Hannah Rosenthal really wants to end "Islamophobia," here is an easy way. She can call upon Muslims to: 1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts. 2. Renounce definitively not just "terrorism," but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means. In line with this, clarify what is meant by their condemnations of the killing of innocent people by...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/statement-president-national-broadband-plan Home • Briefing Room • Statements & Releases The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release March 16, 2010 Statement from the President on the National Broadband Plan America today is on the verge of a broadband-driven Internet era that will unleash innovation, create new jobs and industries, provide consumers with new powerful sources of information, enhance American safety and security, and connect communities in ways that strengthen our democracy. Just as past generations of Americans met the great infrastructure challenges of the day, such as building the Transcontinental...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-obama-and-president-medvedev-russia-us-russia-business-summit Home • Briefing Room • Speeches & Remarks The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release June 24, 2010 Remarks by President Obama and President Medvedev of Russia at the U.S.-Russia Business Summit U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Washington, D.C. 3:08 P.M. EDT PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, good afternoon, everybody. It is a pleasure to be here with my friend and partner, President Medvedev, and I want to thank him again for his leadership, especially his vision for an innovative Russia that’s modernizing its economy, including deeper economic ties between our...

n our society of victims, entrepreneurs are blamed for many of the hardships that ail our economy. Whether it is because of high prices, low wages, or substandard economic conditions, they are often accused of exploitation in their quest for profits. The real victims in our economy, however, are usually not workers who voluntarily enter contracts to sell their labor nor consumers who voluntarily purchase products and services but instead entrepreneurs who are involuntarily subjected to the not-so-invisible hand of our government caretakers. Somehow, it seems completely reasonable to overtly exploit entrepreneurs for their resources in the name of preventing...

"Twitterati report: Syria trip mixes work with play" Posted By Josh Rogin Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - 12:26 PM SNIPPET: "The State Department's two leading Twitterati, Special Advisor on Innovation Alec J. Ross (@alecjross) and Policy Planning staffer Jared Cohen (@jaredcohen), are in Syria this week leading a delegation of tech companies hoping to, as the Wall Street Journal's Jay Solomon puts it, "woo President Bashar al-Assad away from his strategic alliance with Iran" with offers of networking equipment, computer software, and the like." SNIPPET: "In between drinking frappuccinos and touring such places as the Souk al-Hamadiye, the famous covered...

Note: The following text is a quote: www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-presidential-summit-entrepreneurship Home • Briefing Room • Speeches & Remarks The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release April 26, 2010 Remarks by the President at the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center Washington, D.C. 6:05 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Everybody, please have a seat. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Washington. In my life, and as President, I have had the great pleasure of visiting many of your countries, and I’ve always been grateful for the warmth and the hospitality that...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama laid a key plank of his strategy to mend ties with the Islamic world on Monday hosting a summit to boost economic development in Muslim nations. In a step the White House hopes will help shift relations beyond decades of talk about terrorism and conflict, Obama brought entrepreneurs from 50 countries to Washington for two days to spur economic ties. The president pledged to host the meeting in a landmark speech in Cairo last June, when he also called for a "new beginning" to relations between the United States and the Muslim world....

Obama to beam message to Irish Muslim entrepreneurs 25 April 2010 By John Burke, Public Affairs Correspondent US president Barack Obama will address Irish-Muslim businesspeople and community leaders during a two-day entrepreneurship event this week. Obama’s message on the benefits and opportunities of enterprise will be broadcast over the internet from Washington to a gathering in Dublin of Irish Muslims from the worlds of trade, investments and markets. During the presidential entrepreneurship summit, the president will speak about developing closer links between the Muslim community and providing the capability and funds to develop new business and co-operative networks.

“Those in the know seat themselves here” says the woman behind me. The seats of great advantage are the ones next to electric outlets that can be used to supply power to a laptop. About 10% of the crowd seems to have brought their laptops with them and are peering intently into the displays. Others in the audience are tapping out important messages on their pocket communicators – sometimes to their colleagues across the room. Seated nearby are a “consultant in the music business”, a newly graduating attorney, and the owner of a start-up software business which provides secure online...

Taxes: On the eve of President Obama's first State of the Union address, two Democratic congressmen are advising him to extend the Bush tax cuts instead of letting them expire. Now that's a stimulus. We hear that the administration is considering taking a more populist tack as it sails the choppy political waters of 2010. Some of President Obama's plans reportedly include several tax tidbits for the "middle class," including a doubling of the child care tax credit for families below $85,000 in income, and $1.6 billion for child care and a cap on student loan payments. Such transparent populism...

Bring up the topic of economic stimulus and job creation, and you won't hear much about immigration. If the topic does arise, it's usually because somebody believes foreigners are taking U.S. jobs. It's time to bring the immigration question squarely into the debate over jobs. A change to immigration policy could help create jobs and rev up economic growth. It's a change that wouldn't be hard to bring about. I'm talking about the establishment of a Startup Founders Visa program. The program would make it easier for those with great ideas and the desire to start a company to live...

Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary ___________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release October 23, 2009 White House Announces Global Technology and Innovation Fund During his speech in Cairo on June 4, the President announced that the United States would "launch a new fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries." As the latest step in delivering on this commitment, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation announced this week a call for proposals for a Global Technology and Innovation Fund. This fund will help catalyze and facilitate private sector investments that promote...

On Monday, former President George W. Bush will be the "special guest speaker" at the "Get Motivated! Business Seminar" in Fort Worth, Texas, according to the event's Web site. "Attend This Dynamic Seminar to INCREASE Your Productivity and Income!" the Web site says. Other listed speakers include Gen. Colin Powell, who will discuss leadership, former football player Terry Bradshaw (speaking on competitiveness), former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani (perseverance), and a trio of motivational speakers – Zig Ziglar, Dr. Robert Schuller, and Tamara Lowe. Lowe, the Co-Founder and Executive Vice President of Get Motivated! Seminars, told Hotsheet that Mr....

Everyone in the full-time political class pays great homage to us entrepreneurs. We are hailed as the "backbone of the American economy" and the "real engine of job creation." Even the liberal wing of the Democratic Party joins in this chorus, carefully differentiating us from that part of the private sector they can successfully publicly disdain as inherently evil. We are the "good" business folks, according to politicians throughout the whole spectrum. So why are the Congress and the president waging war on the entrepreneurial class with unprecedented zeal, scaring us into a protective hunker-down mode while simultaneously stimulating the...

Nearly every day there's some statistic or factor that's bandied about to demonstrate why our economy continues to struggle. But in all the debates among economists and policymakers over the past few months, one group of people has been stunningly underrepresented -- and it's a group that may actually hold the key to economic recovery: entrepreneurs. The vast majority of new jobs during tough economic times are created by entrepreneurs, and since 1980, all net job growth has come from businesses less than five years old. Entrepreneurs nationwide know firsthand the transformative effect that starting a business can have on...

While President Obama is focusing on the redistribution of wealth and Collectivism in the United States, in China opportunities for Internet entrepreneurs is being encouraged.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Until this summer, salesman Jorge Ocampo had always been what he calls a W-2 man. Proof was the Mercedes he bought with cash. But he had always longed to be his own boss. "Almost every day I thought of it," the 54-year-old said. The opportunity came June 2 when he was laid off from a high-tech company. Unlike the millions of people drawing an unemployment check, he enrolled in a little-known program approved by Congress that gives the jobless the weekly cash benefit but also trains them to run their own business. And the newly minted small-business...

One Wausau woman is transforming herself from an out work single mom into a thriving new business owner. After receiving a layoff notice in March, Shannon Thomas says she already has a handful of customers for her wedding planning business, 'One Girl Creative'. Thomas says before starting her company, she needed to start a Limited Liability Corporation. She says it will cost you around $130.00 Dollars and you can apply online. Thomas says it's also important to have a website. She suggest building your own and hosting it yourself to save money. There are dozens of company's like Google and...

NEW YORK—When Amy Sokoloff and John Powell were trying to start their art restoration business in New York City, they needed some working capital. But banks weren’t willing to take a chance on them. “We didn’t own anything — no houses, no cars, we had no collateral,” Sokoloff said. Powell added, “No one wanted to talk to us. They were not interested, and they were not nice about it.” Sokoloff and Powell ended up on the doorstep of ACCION USA, a not-for-profit group patterned after the Third World microfinance institutions best known for providing money to Moroccan farmers for breeding...

I haven't spent this much time thinking about economics since college, when it was my second major. I have dedicated the last 15 years primarily to my first major, computer science, and my first love, entrepreneurship. But that has changed in the last six months, although my primary concern still remains entrepreneurship. I was invited by Tim Kane and Bob Litan of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the world's largest foundation dedicated exclusively to the cause of promoting and fostering entrepreneurship, to a small conference of economics bloggers held in Kansas City recently. About 30 of us spent a stimulating...

JOINT BASE BALAD — Coalition forces and members of the Balad Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) recently hosted Iraqi business investors, future entrepreneurs and local government leaders for the first Iraqi Banking and Finance Conference in this area. Soldiers from 3rd Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) and the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment worked with the PRT to provide a safe environment for approximately 80 economic leaders, including city managers from Yathrib, Ishaki and Dubuiya, to network together and discuss future business opportunities. Amir Abdul-Hadi, the Mayor of Balad district, said to the group there are many profitable projects in the Balad district...

President Barack Obama's tax proposal – which promises to increase taxes for those families with incomes of $250,000 or more -- has some Americans brainstorming ways to decrease their pay, even if it's just by a dollar. A 63-year-old attorney based in Lafayette, La., who asked not to be named, told ABCNews.com that she plans to cut back on her business to get her annual income under the quarter million mark should the Obama tax plan be passed by Congress and become law. So far, Obama's tax plan is being looked at skeptically by both Democrats and Republicans and therefore...

Imagine you are a young Bill Gates. You’re smart. You’re ambitious. You’re thinking about starting a business to put your talents to their best use for you and for society. Then you turn on the television and see President Obama say that “now is not the time” for entrepreneurs to make profits and get bonuses. You hear Vice President Joe Biden say of corporate CEOs: “I’d like to throw these guys in the brig.”

Chennai: 'Slumdog Millionaire' has a fan in Home Minister P Chidambaram, who said on Saturday that its theme should inspire banks to provide loans to budding entrepreneurs from slums which are humming with business ideas. Chidamabaram cited the movie portraying the rags to riches story of a boy from Mumbai slum as an example to show that young boys and girls from slums are not lagging behind corporate India. "Please watch the movie after its release," he said speaking at the launch of the International Financial Corporation-Venture East-Bharatiya Yuva Shakti Trust (an NGO)-sponsored fund to promote grassroots entrepreneurship in India....

A jury sentenced a Lakeview man to 10 years in prison for growing nearly 7,500 marijuana plants. Andrew Stever, 40, was sentenced on Monday after a three-day trial in the Federal District Court in Medford.Ten years is the mandatory minimum sentence for anyone convicted of growing 1,000 or more pot plants. In July 2007, officers from several local, state and federal agencies found 7,459 plants growing on Stever's Lakeview property, which bordered Forest Service land. Two men fled the scene, leaving behind personal property and three firearms, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Portland. Physical evidence and testimony linked...