Government, Politics and the Economy Obama: Small Business Promises Kept and Broken President Obama promised to help Main Street where, but has he kept that promise? Here's a look at where he's followed through -- and where he hasn't. CNNMoney.com Survey Suggests Recession to End This Quarter With recent data suggesting that the recession has bottomed-out, the Blue Chip Economic Indicators survey of private economists showed about 90% of the respondents believe the recession will be declared over this quarter. FoxBusiness.com Management and Operations [Read Full Article]

Here is a question for all our readers:  Why does customer service stink so badly these days?  I mean, all you hear is how customer service, which is the one real way you can stand apart from your competition, is terrible. In a recent New York Times article, Chicago small business owner Jay Goltz discusses the three reasons he has come up with for the terrible state of customer service. He blames health insurance, crazy pricing and the lack of a real merchant class in this country. Here is what he has to say:  Because of the high cost of health insurance, many companies have opted to hire a lot of part-time staff, which allows them to avoid having to offer benefits. This creates a problem: It is difficult enough to train full-time people. Having them there part-time and having a huge turnover makes it all the more difficult.   Meanwhile, in th... [Read Full Article]

  Government, Politics and the Economy SBA's Karen Mills on How She's Thawing Small Business Credit SBA Administrator Karen Mills discusses how her agency is working to get banks to lend to small business again. BusinessWeek.com Polls, Politics and the Small Business Majority Do the Small Business Majority's Polls really indicate support for requiring employers to provide healthcare or pay the penalty? We don't know and here's why. NYTimes.com [Read Full Article]

  Government, Politics and the Economy Stimulus Plan: Where are the Jobs? That is the $787 billion question: Where is all that government stimulus money, and why hasn't it stemmed the rising tide of US unemployment? BusinessWeek.com Second Stimulus: Democrats Split Democrats in Congress are divided over whether to push for more deficit spending to end the recession and stem job losses, complicating the possibility of a second stimulus bill. Bloomberg.com Management and Operations [Read Full Article]

  Government and Economy Obama: Small Business Key to Economy In a speech welcoming winners of an SBA award to the White House's East Room, President Obama acknowledged that small business is responsible for half the nation's private sector jobs and so deserves support from Washington. Google.com/AP Congress Failing American Small Business While they talk a fine game, when it comes to action on supporting what they, themselves, describe as the “backbone of the economy” our legislators seem happier to play possum. HuffingtonPost.com [Read Full Article]

  Government and Economy Geithner: Economy Stabilizing, Pain Ahead Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Monday the U.S. economy was beginning to stabilize, but cautioned that consumers will still feel the pain of the current recession. Reuters.com Post-Recession America: A Vastly Different EconomyWith the US economy beginning to show some early signs of stabilization, people are wondering what the “new normal” economy is really going to look like? Here are some thoughts. MSNBC.com Management and Financial Issues [Read Full Article]

Employee obesity has long been an issue that employers have kept at arm’s length, and for good reason. The potential legal and public relations ramifications of calling an obese employee into the office for a heart-to-heart chat about their weight are devastating. Workers’ compensation administrators have tended to shy away from the issue as well, fearing lawsuits and preferring to concentrate on body part injuries rather than the whole person. But now, driven by the costs associated with obesity, employers and workers’ compensation underwriters and administrators are beginning to take obesity into account when determining workers’ comp benefits.  According to a study by NCCI Holdings of New Jersey, workers who are morbidly obese, defined as having a Body Mass Index of 40+, filed 45% more claims, missed 8 times the workdays and incurred over 5 times the medical costs and 8 times the indemnity costs than did non-obese workers. By comparison, those who were merely ove... [Read Full Article]

When President Obama said he wanted to spread the wealth, he wasn’t kidding. The budget, stimulus, bailouts—the numbers are so large that they are beginning to lose meaning to the average American. Now he is pushing universal healthcare, with the same astronomical numbers attached, and to pay for it, he wants to tax employer-paid health benefits as well as impose a number of sin taxes on things like sports drinks and soda, snack foods and such. Never mind that he will be driving up the cost of living for millions of Americans, he will be eliminating one of the major incentives for employers to offer healthcare coverage in the first place.  astrid 10.2625 Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } [Read Full Article]