Poor
Man Survival
Self
Reliance tools for independent minded people…
ISSN
2161-5543
A Digest of Urban Survival Resources
Logic will get you from A to B.
Imagination will take you everywhere. – Albert Einstein
Why Are so
Many American Businesses Failing?
There isn’t a week
that goes by where we don’t read about the demise and/or closing of retail
stores such as Macy’s Radio Shack, Sears, K-Mart, Walmart and so on. Brick and Mortar stores are expensive to
operate and consumers have adjusted to shopping online whether through Amazon
and eBay and other outlets.
Amazon has
such strength that it's been posing a threat to brick-and-mortar retailers
including major chain stores for several years now.
It is an unfortunate fact that entrepreneurism in America
has been heading south for more than a decade.
We’re now ranked somewhere around 13 internationally with Hong Kong and
New Zealand beating us. Starting a business in America just isn’t
easy…even opening a lemonade stand is illegal without a permit in many places
such as Overton, TX where officials closed down a young girl’s stand until she
got an expensive health permit!
Part of the reason for our decline is our penchant for
overregulation. Red tape at the federal,
state and local level is strangling small business, our traditional job growth
engine. We also have a high level of
lethargy among various business categories.
Today’s America, though, is much different. Due to bad
monetary policies, exorbitant taxes and a severely anti-business regulatory
environment, there’s very little incentive for anyone to take the risk of
providing value to his or her fellow human beings.
“Without
the state to make meeting their basic needs unnecessarily expensive,” Gary
Chartier writes on FEE.org, “poor people would have more disposable income and
would be more economically secure.”
On
top of that, the poor are forced to pay taxes. They pay the payroll tax to
support the nearly-bankrupted Social Security and Medicare. They pay sales tax,
property taxes (through rent), and gas tax. Even to the middle-class, these
taxes are far more than negligible. To the poor, they are disastrous.
Also,
not to mention, government has quietly eroded the value of our currency through
control of the monetary system. Our dollar has lost over 90% of its value in
the past century. And, of course, the poor are hit the hardest by rising costs
on consumer goods as a result.
Moreover,
due to our politicians' vast inability to spend less than it collects in taxes,
the United States is living on borrowed money. Which,
inevitably, lowers the standard of living for the poor and middle class.” [Ed note” Just since I was born the USA went from being
the most prosperous nation to the most indebted nation].
The poster child for this nonsense is Obamacare which
contains 20,000 pages and 13,000 new regulations for 2016! Entrepreneurship is being strangled by the
very people who claim to create new jobs.
In the past we’ve written about the greed of Goodwill
executives. There was also a report on 60 Minutes how this “charity” is paying
its top honchos six figures while paying handicapped workers as little as 50
cents an hour. Locally, retail customers
are being shortchanged and bypassed because the better quality merchandise that
is donated is being sold online via eBay.
Meanwhile, in AZ, NV, TX, and CO a new thrift store chain
called Epic is trouncing Goodwill while driving 16% of consumers’ away from
traditional retailers and they’re anticipating massive growth because they’re
undercutting the prices of Goodwill [which has gotten mighty pricey].
Here’s another example of a poorly run industry… most
of us know the newspaper business is on its death bed. Fewer Americans read or get their news from
newspapers [or from television]. In 1999
I and several of my colleagues struck out on a mission to convince newspapers
to adopt websites into their media mix.
At the time I’m surprised we weren’t burned at the stake. The reaction to our suggestion was that we
were committing heresy! Obviously, today
most newspapers have websites. Indeed,
my wife reads her hometown newspaper in Pennsylvania via the web.
I created a niche profit center connecting college students
with the 50 and older senior citizen [called My Personal Gopher] which was
ideal for the greater Phoenix, AZ valley as it has a higher than average number
of colleges and seniors. The newspaper
association in Arizona states that it was seeking alternative niche profit
centers for its members so I made an appointment to see them at the start of
the year and pitched my idea.
Two months later and three follow-ups and I’ve not heard a
peep. Now mind you, I had my graphic
artist create a logo and we reserved several domain names and had the concept
reviewed by another entrepreneur [think Shark Tank] beforehand.
Obviously the executive director of this association has the
business acumen and manners of a second grader [hell, she didn’t even thank us
for the gourmet chocolates we brought] but this is indicative of how many
organizations seem to operate today.
It’s a challenge to even get a return phone call or email from business
people today.
I’m no stranger or amateur to the business world…
At one point in my life I won the Presidents’ Award for
Supporter of Entrepreneurs and was an SBA volunteer counselor for startup firms,
a speaker and board member at a popular Entrepreneurship Conference in
Cleveland, OH and I have been profiled in 100s of business publications
including: Entrepreneur, the Wall Street
Journal, In-Business, Venture Magazine and others.
People are always telling me that schools have worked hard
to ‘dummy down’ their students…Perhaps they’ve succeeded!
Below you’ll find some useful resources to share:
Financial Sites to Share with Your Better Half
>>Wife.org
Women’s Inst. For Financial Education is a trove of information on everything
from tips on investing to advice on retirement all geared to helping women
become financially independent.
>>GoGirlFinance.com Women helping women could be
the mantra of this site, where mostly female financial planners give advice on
everything from negotiating salaries to budgeting to planning for the future.
s Amazon Prime Pantry a Good Deal?
Does Amazon Prime save you money? We put it to the test
Does Amazon Prime save you money? We put it to the test
And finally…
An article called "16 Things Advisers Should Know About Women and
Retirement." It's written for human resource professionals, but any
woman who's thinking about retirement will find the data interesting. The data
shows that women's workplaces and life experiences are different. Knowing this
could help them better prepare for the future. So don't count on others to make
your financial future secure. Take four minutes to read the article.
Yours for better living,
Bruce ‘the Poor Man’
Escaping the Rat Race with Your Own Business
Books, Art, Video – the saucy, the odd, the retro,
even the practical…support our vices
A Smoking Frog Feature, Shallow
Planet Production
2 comments:
I had always heard good things about you and your entrepreneur skills - it is a shame about what is happening to our once great nation. Politicians and bureaucrats have screwed things up so much I wonder if we'll ever recover...the government employs more people than the manufacturing sector and what is sad is that they produce NOTHING - they only take from productive citizens!
I have seen a decline in small business. Everything has been regulated out of existence - only the big guys seem to survive [barely] What will the government do when there are no businesses left to extort for tax dollars or to run out of town...guess all these people will move to Hong Kong.
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