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Looks like the steadily growing list of constitutional, ethical and political outrages that constitute the Harry Reid version of Obamacare is sparking a rebellion in the states, as AP reports South Carolina's attorney general plans to investigate the vote-buying that surrounded the proposal in the Senate majority leader's office. According to AP, South Carolina's Henry McMaster is being joined by the attorneys general of Michigan and Washington state in a suit to determine the constitutionality of the Obamacare proposal. Their initiative was prompted by a request from South Carolina's two senators, Lindsay Graham and Jim DeMint, both Republicans. Attorneys-general in...

The Obama administration's new plan to give a boost to small businesses reflects continued trouble in that sector, which is facing new failures even as much of the nation's economy is stabilizing. As credit lines have shrunk and consumers have cut back on spending, thousands of small businesses have closed their doors over the last year. The plight of struggling firms has been aggravated by the reluctance of banks to lend money, said Brian Headd, an economist at the Small Business Administration's office of advocacy. "While bankruptcies are up, overall, small-business closures are up even more," Headd said. California has...

Small Business Bankruptcies Rise 81% In State With credit tight and consumers still pinching their pennies, many business owners find they can't go on. By Nathan Olivarez-Giles December 21, 2009 The Obama administration's new plan to give a boost to small businesses reflects continued trouble in that sector, which is facing new failures even as much of the nation's economy is stabilizing. As credit lines have shrunk and consumers have cut back on spending, thousands of small businesses have closed their doors over the last year. The plight of struggling firms has been aggravated by the reluctance of banks to...

A German company that worked with Iraq in the development of its weapons of mass destruction under Saddam Hussein now may be concentrating its technology and efforts in assisting Iran in its ballistic missile program, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin. Engineering giant Siemens is under investigation for allegedly violating export control laws on two separate shipments of components to Iran. Siemens apparently sought to export from the German port of Hamburg turbo compressors used to accelerate a missile to high speeds from the ground. The compressors originated from a Siemens subsidiary

For many stock investors, this decade can't end soon enough. Even with the rebound this year, the U.S. stock market is on the verge of posting its worst performance for any calendar decade in nearly 200 years of American stock-market history. Investors would have been better off investing in pretty much anything else, from bonds to gold or even just stuffing money under a mattress. Since the end of 1999, stocks traded on the NY Exchange have lost an average of 0.5% a year thanks to the twin bear markets this decade. In the process, the market has provided a...

Small Business Tax & ToilSmall business owners, like myself, pay twice as much in Social Security and Medicare Taxes as regular employees. Yet when we ask for a payroll tax cut on our own pay, what we get from the government is a crackdown on regional banks to give us more loans. Aside from the fact that 140 of these banks have failed since January 16, 2009 (here), what Obama's Cluelessian economists fail to understand is that wealth is not created through amassing debt.If Obama wants to run the Federal Government based on the myth that wealth is created through...

Rock-music lore is rife with stories of bands sealing themselves up in an expensive commercial recording studio for days, weeks, or months, refusing to reenter civilian life until armed with a masterpiece destined to be heard for generations. Today, that scenario sounds more like an ancient fable. Major recording centers such as London; Los Angeles; New York; and Nashville, Tenn., are losing the studios that made them famous due to shrinking budgets at the big labels and the growing sophistication of home-
recording technology. Now musicians can plug directly into their laptops and record digitally with greater ease than ever. Software...

From 1992 to 2004, Barack Obama lectured at the University of Chicago's Law School. By all accounts, our future president was popular with students. He was known to be polite and accommodating to those who disagreed with him. His reputation at Chicago was that of a teacher who broadened your horizons. It's a pity our president didn't take full advantage of his time at Chicago and broaden his own horizons. For on the same campus was Gary Becker, the economist and original thinker who married economics and sociology into a hybrid that became known as behavioral economics. Becker won the...

Loudmouth CEOs, islands in the desert and bringing dead celebrities back to life. Our annual list of the business world's bonehead plays marches on.[]Trading GM's Worthless StockGM couldn't sell enough cars to keep out of bankruptcy, but plenty of its worthless stock sure got sold afterwards.The old version of the company, now known as Motors Liquidation, was left with GM's debt, unwanted plants and dealerships, and its old shares, which trade under the symbol MTLQQ for about 60 cents apiece.Oddly enough, investor demand has been brisk even though GM and the Securities and Exchange Commission have warned that the shares...

A San Francisco-based wireless company is unabashedly mixing its liberal political activism with business, a strategy that has won the praise of President Obama but not the confidence of marketing analysts. A San Francisco-based wireless company is working liberal political activism into its business plan in a unabashedly partisan marketing strategy that experts say could catch on in today's polarized culture -- but also could alienate many potential customers. The company, CREDO, even boasts that it has the support of President Obama as it markets itself as an agent of social change. It pitches its mobile phone services with a...

The "masterminds" behind the false-gold scandal at the Ethiopian central bank might not have gotten caught if they'd used Theo Gray's formula.

Bank of America Corp. pushed closer over the weekend to hiring its next CEO, but compensation remains an obstacle despite the bank's escape from government restrictions on executive pay, according to people familiar with the situation. Robert Kelly, the 55-year-old chief executive of Bank of New York Mellon Corp., has emerged as the front-runner to succeed Kenneth Lewis, who is set to retire at year-end, these people said. As of Sunday night, the negotiations were fluid, and a person close to Mr. Kelly cautioned that it might not be possible to reach an agreement with directors of the Charlotte, N.C.,...

There has been a lot of media focus dedicated to the alleged Tiger Woods scandal - even so much that when examined quantitatively, it overshadows more serious issues. So what will the net result of this media scrutiny be for Tiger? CNBC's sports reporter, Darren Rovell, took at crack at answering that on the Dec. 10 broadcast of "Squawk Box." "It's 12 straight days in the [New York] Post right now," Rovell said. "Everyday since Nov. 29, there's been a Tiger Woods story. When does it end? We don't know. I'm not going to get into the details of this,...

... we all know it is important to be kind, loving, forgiving, and tolerant of others ... to "turn the other cheek" ... but to what extent do we allow ourselves to be taken advantage of? And if someone does take advantage of us, will that embolden them to then take advantage of others? ... The answers to these questions may not be simple; nevertheless the story of "The Dinner Roll" may help us come to the right solutions. After reading it, you may realize that the time is now to find some answers. The Dinner RollThere was a time...

In a London preview of Wall Street's bonus nightmare, more than 1,000 investment bankers have quit Royal Bank of Scotland to work at rivals due to curbs on their paychecks, according to people familiar with the situation. Wall Street banks fear top talent would flee en masse for greener pastures if Uncle Sam's pay czar, Ken Feinberg, and Congress try to put more ceilings on bonuses and pay at financial firms. In the UK, the rules are modeled after US actions to curb pay at firms bailed out by the government.RBS will soon be about 84-percent owned by the British...

Ex-Fed chief Paul Volcker's 'telling' words on derivatives industry Paul Volcker, the chairman of President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, stunned a business conference in Sussex yesterday, saying there is "little evidence innovation in financial markets has had a visible effect on the productivities of the economy".   By Louise Armitstead Published: 9:41PM GMT 08 Dec 2009 The former US Federal Reserve chairman told an audience that included some of the world's most senior financiers that their industry's "single most important" contribution in the last 25 years has been automatic telling machines, which he said had at least proved "useful"....

The underground or "black" economy is rapidly rising, and the fault is mainly due to government policies. Here is the evidence. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) released a report last week concluding that 7.7 percent of U.S. households, containing at least 17 million adults, are unbanked (i.e. those who do not have bank accounts), and an "estimated 17.9 percent of U.S. households, roughly 21 million, are underbanked" (i.e., those who rely heavily on nonbank institutions, such as check cashing and money transmitting services). As an economy becomes richer and incomes rise, the normal expectation is that the proportion of...

In recalling President Obama's cabinet appointments, you'll notice that very few have had any private sector or business experience. To find out if this was a "change" from prior administrations, Michael Cembalest, Chief Investment Officer of JP Morgan Private Bank, did a study that examined the private sector experience of prior cabinet officials since 1900.

Chamber of Commerce Pushback Sarah Carlsruh, December 7, 2009 On November 24th, members of the Chamber of Commerce, the largest business federation, spoke at the Heritage Foundation’s conservative Blogger’s Briefing in defense of the interests of their more than three million organizations and businesses. Thomas Collamore, senior vice president of Communications and Strategy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, addressed the recent media attacks of the Chamber. He said that Moveon.org and other groups have engaged in “an orchestrated campaign… to harass the Chamber and its members.” Groups such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Center for...

OSAKA (Kyodo) – Suntory Holdings Ltd. acquired a U.S. PepsiCo Inc. unit Friday, company officials said, for an estimated ¥10 billion. Suntory’s acquisition of Conway-Myrtle Beach Inc., a franchise bottler based in South Carolina, comes as Suntory is holding merger talks with Kirin Holdings Co. that would create one of the world’s largest beverage and food firms. Suntory, which has the exclusive sales rights to PepsiCo products in Japan, bought the assets and exclusive marketing rights from Conway-Myrtle Beach through a joint venture with PepsiCo. The firm buys ingredients from PepsiCo and sells the products in South Carolina. The...

The transformation of America’s environmental movement began, as ex-United Steelworkers board member David Foster recalls, in late 2004 in a borrowed conference room at a table surrounded by union officials, top aides and the always-present group of Washington assistants. “We’re in this together,” Foster remembered Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope and Frances Beinecke, head of the Natural Resources Defense Council, telling USW President Leo Gerard. About the same time, another group of environmentalists began networking with equally unlikely partners. Jonathan Lash, president of the World Resources Institute, asked General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt to help lobby for a national...

Although the Fed and most economic forecasters are all looking ahead to the recovery, small business owners do not see convinced. Economic confidence among America's small business owners plummeted in November, as more owners cited serious concerns about cash flow and saw economic conditions for their own businesses getting worse. 52 percent of owners say they have experienced cash flow issues in the past 90 days, up from 44 percent in October. ... 53 percent of small business owners see conditions getting worse in the next six months, up from 43 percent in October... 62 percent of small business owners...

Did you know that most of our government programs are managed by an accounting method referred to as the cash method? What it means is that revenue or cash is not recognized until it is received. This presents a huge risk in misrepresenting the picture of an organizations operation and distorts real income. The more appropriate accounting method to realize a true picture of an organizations health is the accrual-based accounting method. This method recognizes income when goods are provided/sold or when a service is rendered. Under the cash method, an expense is recognized when it's paid. Under the accrual...

City Newspaper: So you don't share the same views as the Obama administration on how to get out of this recession and grow the economy? Mark Zupan: No, I don't. I think we need to have a little more humility and trust in what common men and women are able to accomplish, compared to a few policy makers.

Barack Obama's choice of corporate executives to headline his jobs summit Thursday provides a window into Obamanomics: If business wants to thrive under Obama, it had best get cozy with government. Executives from Boeing, Siemens, Disney, and Dow were among those headlining the summit. These companies all depend on government aid or regulation for their profits. In this way, they were fitting icons for Obama's economic vision. Boeing, for instance, might be the corporate welfare king of America. To begin with, Boeing has an entire federal agency dedicated primarily to subsidizing it: the Export-Import Bank of the United States. Ex-Im...

"Steve Novich of Jersey Street Furniture Rental in Clifton, N.J., arranging seating for the “Bring Your Own Business” party on Wednesday at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in West Orange, N.J. Gone were the lavish affairs of just a few years ago. Even scaled-down events were few and far between as the economy continued to sputter. That was basically the genesis for a different sort of holiday gathering: one event “shared” by a hodgepodge of smaller companies on limited budgets. Name tags, it seems, are a must accessory"

The Essence and Future of Texas vs. California by Tory Gattis 11/21/2009 I know there have been a lot of articles and references to Texas vs. California recently in this blog, but, well, there's a new one with some genuinely new contributions to the argument ("America's Future: California vs. Texas", Trends magazine, hat tip to Jeff). And it says some nice things about Houston too, so how can I pass on it? The beginning of the article is here - including an overview of both states' situations - but here are some key additional excerpts: ...Both the Brookings Institution and...

With President Obama carrying on his “jobs summit” this week blaming business for “not hiring enough workers,” it is interesting to see the reaction of at least one major U.S. business to the Obama administration’s actions during this economic downturn. On November 11, David N. Farr, Chairman, CEO and President of Emerson Electric Co., announced at the Baird 2009 Industrial Conference in Chicago that President Obama has succeeded in chasing his multi-billion dollar industry right out of the U.S.A. Why? Onerous regulation, high taxes, and the over $1 trillion Obama debt should be reason enough for any business to consider...

And The Prize for the Worse Economist Goes To …Posted By Veronique de Rugy On December 2, 2009 @ 10:55 am In Economics, News, Politics | No Comments Well, it’s hard to choose these days. The resurgence of Keynesian economics shows how fragile and insecure economists are in general. They are, of course, important exceptions. But while I have a special dark place in my economist heart [1] for the New York Times‘ columnist Paul Krugamn, I think today the prize should to economist Mark Zandi, of Moody’s Economy.com.Zandi is constantly quoted in the media as the go-to-person on what...

      Actions Print this articleDownload a PDF of this articleRead a different volume The Entrepreneurial Vocation by Rev. Robert A. Sirico As a group, entrepreneurs are frequently depicted as greedy, immoral, and cutthroat. This prejudice can be found equally among business and religious leaders, not to mention among cultural elites and individual people. But such criticisms, though justified far too often, fail to acknowledge the implicit spiritual dimension of enterprise, seen particularly in terms of the entrepreneur’s creative ability to imagine new possibilities, to maintain a proper concept of stewardship, and to cultivate the earth to harness its potential....

It was billed as a 787 billion dollar economic stimulus package and when critics said that it wouldn’t work they were roundly ridiculed by Barry Hussein Soetoro himself. (see 50sec. video) Well one thing that we don’t think a stimulus is, is what Democrats and president Soetoro have done with the economy, seriously! And don’t get it twisted Barry, George Bush pulled this economy back from the brink not anything that you did. Before you were in office Bush signed a 700 billion dollar bank bailout, and whether or not we agree with bailing out banks, that is what kept...

Libya, or the Great Socialist people’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, is a country with a unique governmental structure that, although functioning under the same leadership for almost four decades now, seems to have made drastic changes in its foreign policies and external relations. From an isolated country considered, not long ago, by many Western countries as a state sponsoring terrorism, it has once again become a country with which it is good to do business.

Help Wanted, No Private Sector Experience RequiredBy Nick Schulz November 25, 2009, 8:19 am A friend sends along the following chart from a J.P. Morgan research report. It examines the prior private sector experience of the cabinet officials since 1900 that one might expect a president to turn to in seeking advice about helping the economy. It includes secretaries of State, Commerce, Treasury, Agriculture, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Energy, and Housing & Urban Development, and excludes Postmaster General, Navy, War, Health, Education & Welfare, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security—432 cabinet members in all. Rest of Article Here

So as Obama wants to turn the economy around, less than ten percent of the cabinet officials he would presumably turn to for advice have ever worked in the private sector. Not encouraging.

Everyone is familiar with the story of Noah. God was angry at the evil and wickedness of mankind. God instructed Noah to build an ark in order to save his family and two of each animal on earth from the coming flood. Noah could have ignored God’s warning and continued to live his life as before. By heeding God’s warning and building the ark, Noah was able to save himself, his family, and two of every animal from death and destruction. The warning signs regarding the current American Crisis have been discernible since the 1990’s. The un-sustainability of the government’s...

As a president of Krause Co., I have two primary responsibilities - a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders for best return on their capital, and the health and safety of our employees and families (approximately 600 in total). I have control over our financial performance and should be held accountable, and fortunately we are doing well. In regard to the safety of our direct employees, we too have control and accountability. Krause spends hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on safety training, equipment, process and procedures. I am proud of our people who take their safety and their peers'...

Satan, the great motivator The curious economic effects of religion By Michael Fitzgerald  |  November 15, 2009What makes economies grow? It’s a question that has occupied thinkers for centuries. Most of us would tick off things like education levels, openness to trade, natural resources, and political systems.Here’s one you might not have considered: hell. A pair of Harvard researchers recently examined 40 years of data from dozens of countries, trying to sort out the economic impact of religious beliefs or practices. They found that religion has a measurable effect on developing economies - and the most powerful influence relates to...

Washington, D.C. – While chairing part of today’s (Thursday, Nov. 19) Joint Economic Committee hearing, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar questioned U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner about the Administration’s plans to reform the financial regulatory system. “When Wall Street gets a cold, Main Street catches pneumonia,” said Klobuchar. “Small businesses are the engines that drive job creation in this country, and they need better access to credit. I want to make sure small businesses can keep their doors open and start hiring again. My number one priority is jobs, jobs, jobs.” Last month, Klobuchar and 32 other Senators wrote to President...

David Farr, CEO of Emerson Electric Co., said federal governmental policies are hurting U.S. manufacturing. He cited cap and trade, health care reform and labor rules as undermining the industry and its ability to expand and grow jobs domestically. He said that his company will continue to focus on growth overseas. Emerson, the maker of electrical equipment and InSinkErator garbage disposals with $20.9 billion in sales for the year ended September, will keep expanding in emerging markets, which represented 32 percent of revenue in 2009. About 36 percent of manufacturing is now in “best-cost countries” up from 21 percent in...

This hurts: The federal government is "doing everything in [its] manpower [and] capability to destroy U.S. manufacturing," says David Farr, chairman and CEO of Emerson Electric Co. Farr added that companies will continue adding jobs in China and India because they are "places where people want the products and where the governments welcome you to actually do something. I am not going to hire anybody in the United States. I'm moving. They are doing everything possible to destroy jobs."

Printer Friendly Format Nation Monks’ thriving coffee business helps attract young men to monastery By Sheila Archambault Posted: 11/16/2009 WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A small Carmelite monastery in Clark, Wyo., has seen its coffee sales take off in the last couple of years, and the growing awareness of its coffee business has brought an added benefit to the community -- more members. "In the past two years, the monks themselves have grown from six to 15 monks and all the new monks are under 25, some right out of high school," said Susie George, a neighbor of the monks who...

Nicole GelinasArguing the Economy A recent debate highlights the weaknesses of Obamanomics. 18 November 2009 “Obama’s economic policies are working effectively.” That was the motion that Intelligence Squared US put to its New York audience Monday night for a vote. One three-man team defended the president’s policies; another denounced them. Though the “anti” team ultimately lost the vote, it made the more compelling argument: the president’s economic-recovery policies are costly efforts to maintain a failed status quo, and the administration’s blueprint for financial-regulatory reform will only fund the same failed policies until that status quo collapses again. The pro-Obama...

Transcript of remarks made by Leo Carrington (who doesn’t exist) to a mandatory meeting of all employees of Carrington Automotive Enterprises, Inc. (which doesn’t exist either) on August 17th, 2009 at the Royal Payne Hotel (a purely imaginary place) in Norfolk, Virginia (which does, in fact, exist). The Employee Meeting: I would like to start by thanking you for attending this meeting, though it's not like you had much of a choice. After all, attendance was mandatory. I'm also glad many of you accepted my invitation to your family members to be here as well. I have a few remarks...

Sarah Mohammad, 3rd Infantry Division Women's Initiative coordinator, demonstrates products that can be sold on U.S. Military installation during a Business Workshop for Iraqi women in Dujayl, Nov. 11. Photo by Capt. Rebecca Walsh, 1st Infantry Division. DUJAYL — A meeting room inside the library here was filled with lively conversations, Nov. 14, as Iraqi women discussed business opportunities available to them within the Salah ad-Din province. Women from Balad, Samarra, and Dujayl gathered together for a business workshop to exchange ideas about the possibilities of selling hand-made goods on Contingency Operating Base Speicher at the Iraqi Souq Bazaar.For Provincial...

Union ramps up efforts to organize T-Mobile Posted on November 18, 2009 at 11:37 AM Updated today at 12:05 PM WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. union officials are teaming up with their German counterparts in a bid to organize workers at wireless carrier T-Mobile USA.Leaders at the Communications Workers of America say the new arrangement with German union ver.di will help show a "double standard" between how European companies treat workers in their home countries compared with the United States.T-Mobile's parent company Deutsche Telekom AG is known as a union-friendly model in Germany, where cooperation with unions is encouraged by labor...

Have you seen this yet? It's a link to a time lapse, county by county unemployment map encompassing the past almost two years. Pretty cool, actually!

Many people have asked me what is so important about “tweeting” and would it be helpful for their business. I will provide you with some examples in terms of when it would be helpful. Here are some benefits of using twitter to generate business: 1. Bring traffic to your site. If you follow someone and they follow you back, they will most likely check out the link to your website which you have set on your profile. 2. Offer a special promotion. Commerce Casino occasionally sends out a tweet where if you respond within a certain period of time, you...

Golden, celebrity-endorsed shampoo for sale -- 13,000 bottles of it -- sits in the Ormond Beach garage of actor John Martino. Hollywood Movie Hair Products was his dream business, just coming into fruition when the venture was tarnished unexpectedly -- not of Martino's doing. Now he's hoping to polish the product with an image makeover. Martino -- most famous for his Godfather role of Paulie, a turncoat driver killed off in the first Godfather trilogy episode -- never expected part of his real life business to become involved in a new drama. But there he was on a sunny June...

Has the AIG CEO Robert Benmosche, just three months into the job, had enough? The Wall Street Journal scoops the field this morning with news from inside the AIG board room that Benmosche has informed the board "he is considering stepping down as chief executive of the government-controlled insurer." Benmosche dropped the bomb last week, saying he was "done." According to the Journal's sources, Benmosche "is chafing under constraints imposed by AIG's government overseers, particularly a recent compensation review by the Obama administration's pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg." He's not quite out the door yet, though. He agreed to think over...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Two former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers were found not guilty on all charges on Tuesday in the first major criminal trial stemming from the housing and financial meltdown. A jury in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, N.Y., acquitted Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin. Both had worked as hedge fund managers at Bear Stearns, which went bankrupt in March 2008. Federal prosecutors had accused Cioffi and Tannin of falsely inflating the value of their portfolios, even as they knew that the mortgage-backed assets in the funds were at risk of collapse.