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<p>The unmarked vehicles arrived in the morning. More than 20 armed agents poured out.</p> <p>Hours later, Mii’s Bridal & Tuxedo was out of business after serving customers for decades. Its entire inventory of wedding gowns and dresses as well as sewing machines and other equipment were sold at auction.</p>

The CEO: Logan Rae, 22, co-founder (with Kim Hruda) of Bacon Boxes School: Class of 2017 at Florida Atlantic University From: Miami, Florida Based in: Boca Raton, Florida Number of employees: 2-3 part time; with seasonal delivery drivers it goes up to 5. Sleep: 4-7 hours a night Our a-ha moment The idea came in early 2015. I had made a bacon bouquet for a friend that I delivered to a busy office. All the women went crazy over it. I had a final right after, but I took on the project on my own. It was insane. So when...

Here is a proposal for a new reality show that could not only help President Trump do his job, but could help millions of other Americans gain or keep theirs. I'll tell you how in a minute. But first, some background: For a small-business entrepreneur to be successful, he or she must not only come up with an idea and execute it, but then navigate the paperwork and bureaucratic processes involved in getting a business off the ground. It's not enough to make and sell your product and service. You also have to acquire business licenses, open bank accounts,...

For the first 17 years, RBK Health Care Marketing in Milwaukee grew at a respectable pace, reaching more than $3 million a year in revenue in 2016. This year, founder Carl Brown says the firm will grow by 50 percent to 60 percent and hit $4 million to $5 million in revenue. He expects to add two more employees, giving the firm a total of about 18. One of the factors behind its growth spurt: Brown participated in a six-month program called Scale Up Milwaukee, part of a larger movement to encourage established entrepreneurs in second-tier cities — and it's...

Ivanka Trump has been involved in discussions with the World Bank about establishing a funding operation that would support female entrepreneurs, bank and administration officials said Wednesday. The officials stressed that nothing has been set up yet and that talks are ongoing about how this would be set up. They said it could be structured as a World Bank-run "facility," which accepts contributions from governments and private donors and then provides funding and support to women in developing countries. According to a senior administration official, Trump recently pitched the idea to World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, who then...

In today’s hyper-partisan era, one goal crosses the political divide: the need for more entrepreneurs. Encomia are everywhere: Politicians praise them, Hollywood lionizes them, venture capitalists chase them, universities foster them. Entrepreneurs, from Henry Ford to Elon Musk, are embedded in American lore. In an earlier era they were popularized in Horatio Alger rags-to-riches terms; today it’s the garage-to-tech-titan stories that have legendary status for Millennials. Could it be, however, that we’ve hit peak preoccupation with entrepreneurship? Although entrepreneurial magic is often discussed in “tech” terms, the reality is most startups involve such things as restaurants and lawn services or...

Cisco executive chairman and tech investor John Chambers believes the Trump administration and Congress will make startups great again by loosening regulations and making it easier for more companies to go public. "You've got to really enable the next generation of start-ups," Chambers told CNBC's Josh Lipton. "It starts with regulation, in terms of making it easier for companies to do this," said Chambers. "It comes with, really, making America great in the startup community again." Start-ups will be pivotal to America's future economic growth, said Chambers. Though 90 companies that went public on the Nasdaq last year, he stressed...

Ivanka Trump has expanded her research on economic policy with a visit to a Baltimore center for minority-owned small businesses. A White House official confirmed the Wednesday visit to the Raymond V. Haysbert Center for Entrepreneurship at the Greater Baltimore Urban League. The official said Trump participated in a round table discussion with business owners....

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a rare display of bipartisanship, the Senate on Tuesday confirmed former wrestling entertainment executive Linda McMahon to lead the Small Business Administration as part of President Donald Trump's cabinet. The Senate voted 81-19 to confirm McMahon, who helped start and grow World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said McMahon will "prioritize growing jobs over growing government bureaucracy."(continued)

During the Sanders-Cruz debate on the future of Obamacare, A small business from Texas confronted Bernie Sanders about exploding health care costs under Obamacare, telling him she simply can’t afford to provide insurance for all of her employees.During CNN's Ted Cruz-Bernie Sanders debate on Tuesday, the business owner, who operates several hair salons in Texas, asked Sanders how she can comply with Obamacare without passing on costs to customers or lowering her employees’ wages. She said she has just under 50 employees. WATCH: Sanders and a small business owner go back and forth in a fascinating exchange. #CNNDebateNight pic.twitter.com/mO5FLXJGBM— MRCTV.org...

PARIS — One of President Donald Trump’s first orders of business on his first Monday in office was to kill the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal with Asian nations that would have shipped American jobs overseas and dragged down the global value of labor to the benefit of Wall Street oligarchs. The move suggests that this administration is prioritizing the interests of the American worker over the containment of China. The TPP deal was supposed to be a twofold victory for the military-industrial complex: It would have implanted American interests in China’s backyard while increasing profits for Wall Street. One only needs...

Obamacare has cost roughly 300,000 small business jobs due to higher health care costs, according to a new report. The American Action Forum, a center-right policy institute, released findings Wednesday that rising premiums and regulations under the Affordable Care Act have had “dire” consequences for the labor market. The report found the law has cost $19 billion in lost wages per year and forced 10,000 small businesses establishments to close their doors. The study covered employers with 20 to 99 employees. “Research from the American Action Forum (AAF) finds regulations from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are driving up health...

It's time to take the gloves of the U.S. economy. I’m not sure what happened around this time 8 years ago but, whatever it was, it sent small business owners into a tailspin. Confidence plummeted, optimism evaporated, and the outlook became bleak. It stayed that way throughout the soon-to-be previous administration’s tenure. What a difference an election makes.

President-elect Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. elections is a giant leap for small businesses, according to a survey of their owners. The November reading of the National Federation of Independent Businesses' small business optimism index jumped to 98.4 from 94.9 — its sharpest surge since 2009 — with all of the increase in sentiment coming after the U.S. elections held on Nov. 8. “This month we bifurcated the data to measure the results before and after the election,” explained Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg. “The November index was basically unchanged from October's reading up to the point of the election...

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump plans to nominate professional wrestling magnate and former Senate candidate Linda McMahon as his choice to head the Small Business Administration, transition officials told Reuters on Wednesday. The announcement was expected later on Wednesday. McMahon, 68, is a co-founder and former CEO of the professional wrestling franchise WWE, which is based in Stamford, Connecticut. She ran unsuccessfully for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut in 2010. She was an early supporter of Trump's presidential campaign. The SBA, which has at least one office in every U.S. state, provides support to small businesses such as extending loans...

You’ve seen the story multiple times already: a Christian baker declines to cater a gay wedding, and gets sued in the process. The most publicized came out of Oregon, where the bakery Sweet Cakes by Melissa chose not to bake a wedding for a same-sex wedding. Rachel Bowman-Cryer and her mother visited Sweet Cakes planning to order a wedding cake. Bowman-Cryer had purchased a cake previously from the Kleins for her mother’s sixth wedding. Bowman-Cryer wanted to have the same cake she had purchased for her mother. That’s when Aaron Klein asked what the name of the bride and groom...

With a broad new class of workers becoming eligible for overtime, many small businesses are scrambling to figure out how to factor the regulations into their bottom line. The Obama administration on Wednesday announced the final details of new labor rules to increase the salary cutoff for overtime pay. Although the plan was outlined a year ago and employers have several months to comply, many say the change will be a challenge to small businesses that pride themselves on a scrappy, entrepreneurial culture. “We are pretty flexible,” said Kelli Glasser, who is president and chief executive of Exhibit Concepts, a...

So I wake up today hearing this HORSE CRAP rule regarding overtime....a move that is SO BEYOND the scope of a federal government it makes me want to scream. I have been largely absent from news today--is there ANY response on this at all?! I know Valerie told her little man to make this effective AFTER the election....but certainly this overreach can be fought in other ways. Any hope at all out there?

The rap on Donald Trump is he's all bluster. The New York Times says he's offering "incoherent mishmash." GOP rival Ted Cruz claims Trump has "no idea" how to fix the economy. Don't' believe it. The Trump campaign is putting forward proposals to fix problems facing the nation, from the long waits for medical care at the VA to the impending collapse of Obamacare. Check out Trump's economic plan, for starters. Unlike Hillary Clinton's radical anti-business agenda, Trump's plan would actually help unemployed Americans get back to work. Trump slashes the corporate tax rate to 15 percent, down from the...

If a fierce political campaign can be likened to war, then the war we are watching played out in both the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries proves the ancient saying, “In war, truth is the first casualty.” The leading candidates for the presidential nominations of their parties – the Republican's Donald Trump and Democrat's Hillary Clinton – have taken great liberty with the truth, or have badly missed the point, on issues important to Latino voters. With more than 66,000 Latinos turning 18 each month, it’s critically important that presidential candidates recognize that Hispanics, and particularly the Hispanic community’s business...