Small Business Boomers

My husband has a pension coming to him.  I don’t.  I have some 403b/IRA money in place, but I’m concerned that I will outlive it.  So I have spent some time studying annuities, talking to people about a variable annuity that I “can’t outlive.”
I get two kinds of advice:
A.  They’re great. You should put all your money in one.  This, of course, if from the “financial advisor” who sells annuities.
B.  They’re awful.  No sane person would touch them.  This is a lot of people, including MarketWatch commentator Paul Farrell, who recently bashed annuities.  If you read his article, you would …read more

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It seems that each of us in the U.S. has 19 feet of retail space allocated for our use.  Historically we should have no more than 10 feet of retail space per person.  So, we are overbuilt by 90%.  Not a good sign for retailers or those who own retail property.  For the moment retail is expensive.
There is a realtor in Coral Gables, Florida who takes people around in a green bus to view distresses properties.  I heard this on NPR.  Seems some folks think that distressed property in Florida is now cheap.  Tough call.  Economists who study the real estate …read more

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“The chain-link gate yowled like an angry tomcat in the watery light of dawn.”  This is the first sentence of a book by a “New York Times bestselling author.”  I can’t say that I’ve seen a more hack-kneed or trite opening to a book since Snoopy wrote one.  There follows a number of quotes lauding the abilities of the author and the series of books, all marketing BS.  If you are a writer, and I like to think that I am, you wonder how this book got published.
Okay, give the guy another 25 pages.  Maybe it’s just a bad start.  After …read more

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I just read an article about Generation Y, who were born between 1982 and 2000. They grew up in a world of computers, never having known what it would be like to live without them.
My children, Generation X. were born between 1965 and 1979, and grew up in a world of recording – 8 tracks to cassettes to VCR’s. They didn’t know a world without videos, walkman, CD’s.
My generation, early Boomers, grew up with TV, which was a new phenomenon in the early 1950’s. We didn’t know a world without TV.
My parents’ generation grew up with the …read more

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If you have been following the news about National Small Business Week (which I guess is technically over), you might be interested in what the other b5media people have been saying about the phenomenon of Small Business from Accounting$olver:
Small is Beautiful (businesses, that is)

a Success Formula for your small business
The importance of Working Capital and
How to determine your Working Capital needs for your small business
Keeping customers through Trust-Loyalty-Growth
Good stuff here, and well worth your time to read.  Wish I’d thought of it.

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Which U.S. states are best and worst for small businesses? The Small Business and Enterprise Council has published a ranking of states in their friendliness for small businesses.
The friendliest states: 1)South Dakota, 2)Nevada, 3)Wyoming, 4)Washington, 5)Florida. The worst: 47) Iowa, 48) California, 49) Minnesota, 50) New Jersey, and 51) District of Columbia.
I have lived in Iowa for over 20 years, to I figure I’m an Iowan (or “Hawkeye,” I guess.)  But I was not aware that Iowa ranked so low in business friendliness.  Maybe I should move to Florida.

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This is National Small Business Week. In honor of this important week for small business owners, here’s how Baby Boomers rank as small business owners.
Some interesting stats on “older” business owners show that we are the people who are driving the workforce. This disproves the myth that we’re retiring to just sit around.
Entrepreneurship among seniors is growing. In 2002, the rate of self-employment for the workforce was 10.2 percent (13.8 million workers), but the rate for workers aged 50 was 16.4 percent (5.6 million workers). Although those age 50 made up 25 percent of the workforce, they comprised …read more

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In 2006, the Stillwater, Minnesota school district was forced to pay over $1 million to former employees who had been discriminated against in early retirement. Apparently, the school district was reducing early retirement incentive payments for each year as employees grew older. Huh? (I had to read that a couple of times before I could really believe that statement.) Read the story from the EEOC Press.
Not only do older workers not get hired( as Jim and I talked about in previous posts), they get discriminated against in retirement benefits. I’ve also heard of workers being …read more

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If you feel that you have an age discrimination case you need to talk with your local Federal office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.  They have a very good process to help you determine if you have a case under the law.  They will advise you and take action if they feel you have a good case.
People always say that you’ll never get another job in your field if you invoke the law.  If your experiencing consistent age discrimination, what have you got to loose.
If you’re out of work, you have plenty of time on your hands.  Get involved in government.  …read more

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On April 28th Eureka Ranch Technology Ltd. will launch a registry site where researchers and inventors can post their ideas. The site is planeteureka.com.  The purpose of the site is to offer innovations to people and companies who can develop posted ideas into marketable products.
The reasoning is that small businesses don’t have much money for research and development, but they are very good when it comes to bringing new ideas to market.  So, the site offers new, underdeveloped ideas to small businesses.  The site has some big name backers: Best Buy, Department of  Commerce, Proctor & Gamble.
It is a good idea to …read more

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