Small Business Boomers

Which of the following is true? Veterans are:

More likely than others to start businesses
More successful in their businesses than others
Working in home-based businesses.

The answer, of course, is “All of the Above.” If you’re a baby boomer veteran considering starting a small business, there are many resources to help you. The Veterans Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development Act of 1999 was enacted to help veterans start and succeed in businesses. This legislation established an office of Veterans Business Development within the SBA. The mission of this office is to:
“maximize the availability, applicability and …read more

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Like other Baby Boomer women, I am very health-conscious. I read about being healthy, think about eating healthy foods (although I don’t always do it), and I understand the long-term benefits of good health. I heard from Kristen King (another b5media blogger) about a contest in which you can win a $50 gift card to Target by listing the 5 things you can do this year to improve your health.
Sounds pretty easy to me, so I did it. You can see my entry and more details on the contest on Kristen’s site: Lively Women. …read more

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Something to be aware of.   Condo developers in Flordia, an I’m sure other places, pay real estate agents commissions in advance on the sale of condminium units.  This is not a bad practice or in any way underhanded.  If you were ever a sales person working on an advance, it’s the same concept.  Commissions on what you sell go aganist the amount they have already paid you.  If you are in the market for a condo in Flordia, or any place else, you need to understand if the real estate agent you are dealing with has taken advance commissions from …read more

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Sean over at Franchise Pick recently talked about McDonald’s. His discussion of post-WWII era families traveling around the country eating at the same place every day (McDonald’s, of course), brought back memories.
In high school, we spent most nights at McDonald’s, cruising around and eating in our cars (this was pre-eat-in). In college, we would leave the dining hall and go to McDonald’s for fries for dessert.
Want to invest your retirement savings in a franchise? According to the McDonald’s franchise website, you will need about $250,000 in “non-borrowed” personal assets. After you have been trained at “Hamburger …read more

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What is with all this extra nose hair?  I mean, one day my nose looks fine.  The next morning it looks like I’ve got a hibiscus growing out of my nostrils.  A quick glance at my ears to see a long strand sticking out of my ear lobe and fuzz coming  out of the ear holes.  What’s with this?  Does growing older require more insulation for my ears and nose?  Maybe it’s just put there to challenge my eye sight and my physical acuity when I have to trim it all.  Amazing.
One good quality trimming scissors, priceless.

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In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week Bill Gates continued his discussion about philanthropy by taking it to the business world. He talks about what he calls “Creative Capitalism.” The essence of this Creative Capitalism is “…an approach where governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world’s inequities.”
Now, it’s one thing to talk about individual philanthropy, but it’s quite another to talk about corporate philanthropy. It …read more

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For those of us who never took out a sub-prime loan or bought a securitized instrument back by sub-prime mortgages we are about to receive a bill.  It will come stealthily.  You will hardly know it as you get stuck for the excesses of the financial market.  It will come in the form of higher state and local taxes.  It will come because the insurance premiums on and the rates of return for municipal bonds will go up.  In the US and Canada local governments do rely heavily on the cheap money available through municipal bonds.
Doesn’t seem fair.  How could this …read more

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A comment by Linda Johnson to one of my recent posts directed me to check out Bill Gates’ address to the graduates of Harvard in June 2007. In his address, he spoke about doing the most good for the most people.  The quote that particularly struck me was, “The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity.”  In other words, turning caring into action should be a simple thing – you see a problem, and you act to change the problem.  But you may get blocked by complexities of the situation.  Gates says we …read more

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Municipal bonds are a good buy in the market these days.  Rates of return are high and you get the tax free aspect.  They’re a goo defensive pick in this volatile stock market, except for those areas that are being hit hard in the sub-prime loan default area.  Their tax base is going down the tubes.  Think Florida and Nevada, among others.

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Today’s Wall Street Journal (1/22/08) contains three articles on the coming recession.  Two are headlined at the top of the front page and one is on page two.  This is not good.  The WSJ is a serious business newspaper which does not “cry wolf.”
The first article is about the general credit crunch that is occurring across the economy.  Small and start-up business are particularly susceptible.  The second article is about foreign reactions to the coming recession.  The third article is about the breath and depth of the coming recession.
What this says to me is that it is time to play …read more

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