Reflections of a Physician Patient Facing Government-run Medicine and Cancer at a Crossroad by Kris Held, MD

May 5, 2013 by Idea Capitalist Leave a comment

Kris Held, MD

by Kris Held (Notes) on Sunday, May 5, 2013 at 3:39pm

I am a physician and surgeon home today recovering from my third operation for breast cancer. I am blessed to live in the United States where we enjoy the earliest detection and highest survival rate for breast cancer in the world…at least for now. Tragically, government has taken over the practice of medicine in the U.S. via the unwanted and corruptly passed, without-having-been-read, paradoxically named Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA).

The US Preventive Task Force born of the ACA has already trumped our established guidelines for breast cancer screening to save money over lives – not a single breast cancer specialist was on the committee. Committee members picked and chose which studies they would include and which they would disregard - in the same fashion that this self-serving political ruling class picks winners and losers and now picks who lives and who dies. I am thankful for my physicians, surgeons, and their teams who carried me through this ordeal to a cure and good physical result. I was able to select my doctors, my treatment, and I only missed two weeks of work last year and 2 days this year. You see, as a physician and small business owner, my patients and my employees need me to be at work.

There is no room in the business model for the doctor to be out. My overhead is tremendous, and when I am out the lost income is nothing compared to the uncovered operating expenses. I love my patients, my employees and the privilege of practicing medicine, but sadly I fear that at some point it is just too risky, if not stupid, to continue in this oppressive, punitive, stifling environment.

Government first got its claws on medicine when it froze wages on workers allowing employers to instead offer health insurance as a benefit to attract employees. Health insurance as an employee benefit has evolved into a government mandate, now called a tax. Then in 1965, the federal government’s grip on medicine was tightened to a chokehold with implementation of Medicare and Medicaid, massive entitlement programs that have bloated to beyond what experts fathomed to the point that they are fiscally unsustainable and will soon throw our economy into fiscal ruin.

Rather than reforming these broken, bankrupting components of healthcare, the federal government has expanded them and seeks to place everyone on them. There is no understanding the irrationality of the process other than to accept that this is nothing about the health of the American patient but is all about keeping power and money in the hands of the political ruling class, whose intent is to fundamentally change our country to accepting the socialized medicine of a dictatorial state in complete disregard for the Constitution.

As an eye surgeon, most of my patients are seniors on Medicare. Cataract surgery is a minor miracle for patients who are able to continue enjoying the highest quality of life with restored vision. Having performed nearly 10,000 cataract operations over the past twenty-some years, I have become a highly skilled surgeon able to achieve successful outcomes in even the most difficult cases. With technological advances and an experienced surgeon, the operation can be performed quickly. Trust me, there are surgeons who take much longer and achieve poorer outcomes. Government, because it has no concept of how to practice medicine, judges quality of care based on time taken and pays physicians based on a convoluted communist based system of relative value units. So, ironically, as the surgeon and technology gets better, our pay gets lowered.

Medicare now pays $629.91 for cataract surgery including 3 months post op care, and United Healthcare pays $526.08. Most believe the goal of this administration is to ultimately have a single-payer system (socialized medicine) to be administered by United Healthcare, the largest provider in the US and worldwide. Because of its world market, it will be able to undercut all other carriers long enough to remain the sole survivor.

While physician fees have plummeted (because we are motivated to care for our patients first as opposed to fighting for pay), payments to hospitals and pharma have skyrocketed. There is a convoluted billing game that goes on between government, hospitals (represented by the-American Hospital Association lobbyists), big insurance, and big pharma. These interest groups all colluded behind closed doors with big federal government to cut deals in the ACA. Physicians were excluded, demonized, denigrated, and lied about-especially by President Obama who famously said doctors are immediately paid “30,40, or $50,000 to cut off a foot”, when in reality a below knee amputation fee to physician is around $700 including 3 months post op care. He further accused surgeons of taking out tonsils for cash instead of prescribing antibiotics, which is not only a lie, but in reality the surgeon’s fee is around $200 while the cost of antibiotics may exceed that.

The final blow was when Obama declared “we will let doctors know, and your mom know, that you know what, maybe it’s better to take the painkiller instead of having the surgery.” Government is now arrogantly practicing medicine without a license, and sadly this government puts the collective good ahead of the individual patient and family.

While I am now paid $500 for performing intricate, vision saving but potentially blinding eye surgery, the government will further reduce my pay if my patients don’t achieve a perfect outcome. So, if I operate on patients with coexistent disease, like macular degeneration, who will be greatly benefited but will not achieve 20/20, I will be penalized. Surgeons will stop operating on complex patients. My fee will be reduced further if I do not implement meaningful use electronic medical record reporting, quality reporting and data collecting, and I will not be paid at all if I do not adopt the absurd ICD10 codes by October 2014.

Further, any HIPAA violation subjects me to a $1.5 million dollar fine, and a dictation error can land me in jail, as exemplified by Dr. Natale this past year. Government is doing random unauthorized audits on physicians looking for fraud; the physician is presumed guilty until proven innocent, and bounty hunters are offered a percent of what they can dig up. The government is seeking to link the license to practice medicine with forced-taking of government insurance and forcing doctors to spend thousands of dollars and hours on “Maintenance of Certification” and “Maintenance of Licensure” scams that ultimately line the pockets of our specialty societies, which like the AMA have become nothing more than partners in crime with the feds.

All this, while patient expectation and sense of entitlement escalate…patients are unhappy, if not angry, if they have to come out of pocket a dime and if they don’t get 20/20 vision without glasses. Doctors are then subject to lawsuit. No tort reform was enacted in the ACA, because the trial lawyers’ desires exceeded the doctors’ need for protection. So, is the risk of jail, lawsuit, audit, $1.5 million dollar HIPAA fine, patient and government harassment, oppression, and demonization and MOC and MOL demands worth the $500, when I can’t even cover my expenses? Is your eyeball worth more than your iPhone? At some point it becomes too risky and flat-out stupid to continue to operate in this environment.

When the doctor in me wants to throw in the towel, the patient in me says “stay in the ring”. I would not be here if my surgeons had quit. What we must do as physicians is refuse to play this game any longer. We must stand against government for the sake of our patients, profession, and future of our country. When Government says grab your ankles, physicians must say NO! Government can’t do this without us. Are we complicit, compliant pawns doing government bidding, or are we men and women of the mind serving the sick, honoring the tradition and advancing the field? The only way not to lose is not to play.

Physicians must refuse to participate in this destructive, abusive, wasteful system. We must practice our trade outside the stranglehold of government. We have actual workable plans founded on the sacred doctor–patient relationship that will drastically cut costs and vastly improve quality of care.

Will we stand? Will our patients stand with us?

Filed under Small Business

Obamacare Tax on the So-called Affluent

April 30, 2013 by Idea Capitalist Leave a comment

I’m coming to you from a small business owner’s perspective. Small business owners are looking for every manner to save money and still grow their businesses. The last thing they need is to pay more taxes.

If you are a small business owner who has worked really hard to get to a point you are earning a decent salary, approaching retirement, saving some money, investing it in financial instruments, that earn dividends and interest, it is disappointing to learn you are going to be paying more in income taxes.

Now you’re paying for Obamacare with taxes on income you have already earned on investments you have already made with hard earned dollars.

“Affluent investors who ignore this tax will be in for a total shock next April 15,” says David Lifson, a certified public accountant specializing in tax at Crowe Horwath in New York. Not so affluent investors that pay individual income taxes on business income are going to feel the shock, too.

According to the Wall Street Journal such income is typically not subject to withholding, and people won’t be factoring it into their estimated taxes. The tax, which took effect Jan. 1, applies to the “net investment income” of married joint filers who have more than $250,000 of income (or $200,000 for singles). Only investment income—such as dividends, interest and capital gains—above the thresholds is taxed. The rate is a flat 3.8% in addition to other taxes owed.

I know many of the so called ”affluent” are not inclined to be politically active, but read Laura Saunders: Are You Ready for the New Investment Tax?. This should be a reason for you to pick up the phone and call your congressmen and senators to repeal this tax. If this is pocket change for you, if so, maybe you should think about your kids?

I won’t argue the one benefit to Obamacare that makes sense, is forcing insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions, regardless of the cost (to them).

Insurance companies need to start policing the costs they can control in their own backyard, for example, Big Pharma and not pile those costs on the backs of their customers.

I say that, because insurance companies have been skating on this issue for far too long. If the insurance companies won’t step up to the plate, this could still could get done without ACA, a.k.a. Obamacare. We don’t need Obamacare to care for people with pre-existing conditions.

To pay for healthcare coverage for people with pre-existing condition, you reduce costs. To reduce costs you increase competition. To increase competition, you deregulate and allow competition between insurers across state lines.

You also increase the incentive for the consumer (patient) to shop for the very best healthcare at the very best price.

I pay for my employee’s health and dental benefits up to the monthly H.S.A premium. If they select a more expensive plan they pay the difference. I have physicians who have discounted procedures 25% because they know I’m paying for their services out of my own pocket (at least until I reach the out of pocket maximum).

The emphasis at our company is to be healthy. We have our own gym. We have a cycling team we formed to fight MS.

If an individual is making decisions on their own behalf with regard to their health and their health care costs, the cost of healthcare will truly become more affordable.

The answer to rising prices and declining benefits is to increase competition in the health insurance market. Encourage, not put limits on Health Savings Accounts H.S.A.’s as the new Affordable Care Act does. You don’t decrease costs through big government and more regulation.

Here’s what the Democrats are saying about Obamacare. Montana Sen. Max Baucus, a Democrat, called it a ”train wreck.” A Democratic colleague, West Virginia’s Sen. Jay Rockefeller, described the massive Affordable Care Act as “beyond comprehension.” Henry Chao, the government’s chief technical officer in charge of putting in place the insurance exchanges mandated by the law, was quoted in the Congressional Quarterly as saying, “I’m pretty nervous . . . Let’s just make sure it’s not a third-world experience.”

Obamacare is an unmitigated disaster. To add insult to injury, we are now on the hook to pay for what will go down in history as the next great entitlement program, the Affordable Care Act!

Filed under Entitlements, income tax, Obamacare, Small Business, taxes Tagged with Barack Obama, big government, healthcare, income tax

Anytown Small Business Sequestration – Letter from the CEO

April 3, 2013 by Idea Capitalist Leave a comment

EVAN VUCCI / AP - President Barack Obama during the fiscal cliff negotiations in the briefing room of the White House on Friday, Dec. 28, 2012, in Washington.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Due to our inability to produce a product in the past 4 years and the conjoined, unbridled spending we have undertaken, it pains us to adopt the Government’s style Sequestration, a.k.a. mandatory spending cuts, here at Anytown Small Business, Inc.

Following the President’s example, I am voluntarily taking a 5% salary cut. If I was making as much as our President, that would be enough to replace the windows in Building 100, thereby erasing the threat of Mud daubers terrorizing our finest.

Let me explain. The promise of lower healthcare costs didn’t happen.

The promise of cleaner, renewable, and cheaper energy costs and fewer regulations, where everything that was beautiful, has now brought us down, didn’t happen.

Our hiring practices, spurred on by the promise of a Government backed Stimulus plan to create jobs and economic growth, didn’t happen.

We have had to hire armies of attorneys and consultants to remain in compliance of the new regulations and laws.

Each year over the past four years our healthcare costs have risen 25% or more. As the Supreme Court has ruled, we all know now, even though the Main Stream Media (MSM) chooses to ignore, the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act (PPACA), a.k.a. ACA, a.k.a., Obamacare is a tax! Now on top of the cost of healthcare we have an additional tax burden. Any new tax increases the cost of doing business.

We now have to reduce employment to less than 50 workers. So we are playing spin the bottle every day, after work of course. The winner gets to kiss his or her job good-bye but gets to keep the bottle.

We’ve hired the people the Government wanted us to hire. If you were down on your luck, if you had been laid off or fired somewhere else, if you had remained unemployed past the limit of your unemployment benefits, and you have been kicked to the curb by the government, you were on our radar. Why not? There were thousands of reasons to hire you. Government incentives. Government dollars.

Those of you who turned our job offers down and preferred to live on government entitlements, it seems like you’re working harder not to work. Too often we have seen your job inquiries were bogus. Too bad there were no frequent flyer points from Craig’s List for answering either your own phony ads or ads for which you need not apply, because you were not remotely qualified.

At Anytown, you could have come to the front of the line. The less qualified the better. Our local, county, state and federal government want you to work for us and they want to provide Anytown thousands of dollars in incentives to hire you. The press releases are great too. Of course, we all know, there are the many companies who take the government’s money and not only never meet quotas, meaning jobs, but basically fail, pick a Chapter 7 or 11.

Many who were hired spent their valuable time to build a truly homogeneous product. We made every effort to provide our product in many different languages, including all of the Asian dialects, but then we realized all of our major competitors learned to publish their products in English and are our best customers, too. As part of the Sequestration, we had to let every translator go.

This has been a tremendous benefit to our company’s bottom line, the cost cutting terminations and the fact is there that are still employees working for us that do not comprehend, read or write in English. The last thing we need is a lawsuit from the government.

Those of us who are capable of doing our job, spend countless hours covering for our fellow employees, and the company appreciates it! Unfortunately, we are also announcing 10%, across the board, salary cuts for all personnel, will affect each and every one of you… the same. I thank you for your sacrifice.

Finally, we poured unconscionable sums of borrowed money into unproven technology and insolvent companies. Our investments, while popular with the majority of our customer base, they did little to contribute to our future growth in revenues or in our company’s best interest.

After nearly going out of business it finally dawned on us. The top 20% of our customers were contributing 70% of our revenues. Our General Accounting Office said it’s time we start paying attention to our paying customers. Let’s hope they love golf!

Filed under entrepreneurs, Go Green, income tax, leadership, Liberal Media, Middle East, MSM, Musings, Payroll Tax, Politicians, Rants, Republican, Small Business Tagged with Barack Obama, big government, go green, income tax, Middle East, payroll tax, payroll tax holiday, republican, small business

Broken People by Broken Government

April 2, 2013 by Idea Capitalist Leave a comment

Unfit for Work - Yet Another Burgeoning Entitlement Program is one of the best written articles I have read it quite some time on any topic, this on the disability entitlement. Poignant and startlingly real, sad for our citizens and disappointing for our government, who appears to be their own worst enemy.

Chana Joffe-Walt

The author, Chana Joffe-Walt goes on to do an interesting Washington Post interview, ‘I thought I knew what being disabled meant, and I don’t.’

She is also wrongfully criticized by Lennard Davis, self-acclaimed Distinguished Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago, in a blog post, NPR Reporter Chana Joffe-Walt Gets Disability Wrong, who by his own admission says his argument about an aging population ”may be closer to the fact” when referring to the rise of people seeking disability benefits, as opposed to Joffe-Walt, who’s narrative supports the growth of a new entitlement program.

Davis tries to discredit Joffe-Walt because she doesn’t have Davis’s educational pedigree. I would say he’s just a bag of hot air, who needs to spend more time outside the classroom. He’s been schooled by a highly talented reporter and writer.

To further suffer my opinion, I know people who have suffered disabling injuries or illnesses, some who could have worked, but were wrongfully terminated. They went on disability. Now they make due on limited income and still find ways to contribute to society. Maybe there should be a limited disability income program? I hope we hear more on the subject from Joffe-Walt.

Filed under Entitlements, Musings, Rants Tagged with big government, disability, Entitlements

Now over 20,000 Reasons to Repeal Obamacare

March 21, 2013 by Idea Capitalist 2 Comments

More broken promises from the Obama Administration. Surprised?!

Now over 20,000 ~~17,000~~ pages of regulations, forget the 2,000 plus pages that comprise the law that’s equivalent to the Lord of the Rings Trilogy! Like fiction HHS just makes stuff up as they go along.

17,000 pages of regulations, Sebelius and the Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS), making up the rules and regs. as they go along, the tsunami has only just begun…

Here’s a sample, a lawyers dream. ““The final rule does not address all of the insurance exchange provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and additional rules will address those, according to the rule.”

Be afraid! Wake UP! people!!!

A House Committee on Small Business Republicans quote, “Sec. Sebelius claimed this morning that the health care law (Obamacare) has been “good news” and President Obama claimed that his health care law would decrease premiums by $2,500 in his first term. However, this tells a different story for small business.”

Excerpt from SHOP the Small Business Exchange Option

“Consistent with the scope of the Exchange establishment and eligibility proposed rules, this final rule does not address all of the Exchange provisions in the Affordable Care Act; rather, more details will be provided in forthcoming guidance and future rule making, where appropriate.”

From the 644 page document, Final Rule State Healthcare Exchanges, and how the final rules address small business, capitalism and the entrepreneurial spirit may die.

Keep in mind this is one paragraph of a 664 page document to mandate a final rule on SHOP!

Be afraid! Be very afraid!!!

Filed under Conservative, entrepreneurs, NFIB, Obamacare, Politicians, Rants, Republican, Small Business Tagged with ACA, Barack Obama, big government, NFIB, Obamacare, PPACA, republican, small business

Why Is the Cost of Healthcare a Republican Problem?

March 17, 2013 by Idea Capitalist Leave a comment

Democrats say they are getting screwed by Republicans, and the Healthcare Industry.

We all have to bend over and cough, when it comes to healthcare costs, not just Democrats.

The Democrats passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

We have a Democratic majority in the Senate and a Democrat in the White House.

My company’s healthcare costs are going up 26% in 22013. The problem is there is not enough competition. I can only shop 3-4 insurance companies in FL for healthcare for my employees. The government discourages competition…

Medicaid requires the certificate of need be filed when opening a new facility. The Certificate of Need (CON) process requires a new entrant to the market to establish that its services and capacity are “needed,” and gives existing hospitals a chance to argue why the entrant should be barred.

The CON program is supposed to limit over capacity and duplication of services. Isn’t this ironic considering that ACA .for every American healthcare and one of the overriding concerns is lack of access to quality healthcare. This program has been eliminated in 18 states, but remains law in the State of Florida.

Like them on Facebook if you think everything that needs fixing in Washington is the Republicans fault.

Another problem is we don’t ask what things cost or ask for discounts. ACA a.k.a. Obamacare rules ineligible high deductible plans supplemented by health savings accounts. The health savings account portion will not be counted as part of the policy package, and it will be ruled as falling below the minimum standard policy that Obama Care requires.

I have an HSA. I ask for discounts. It works.

And, as usual the Democrats, who won the last two elections to the White House and have held a majority in the Senate, blame everyone else, especially the Republicans.

Democrats don’t have any ideas, they just want the government to fix it.

Filed under Conservative, Obamacare, Politicians, Republican, Small Business Tagged with big government, medicaid, republican, small business

Why in the World Would You Build a Small Business!?

February 24, 2013 by Idea Capitalist 1 Comment

Small business owners

The ideacapitalist interviews… the ideacapitalist, family guy, entrepreneur and small business owner.

How did you become a small business owner, and why?

The simplest answer would be, no one would hire me. My first job out of school was working for my dad. Nine months later, my dad fired me. I knew it was coming. My dad ran the business out of the house. That morning my mom had made me my favorite breakfast, blueberry pancakes.

Thereafter, I have had successful stints with large and mid-size companies, but there’s only so much a person will do for money. I had reached my limit.

What do you love the most about running a small business?

Gainfully employing good people. Growing the business. Being more innovative and responsive than our larger competitors and winning.

What does owning a business allow you to do that most folks do not get to enjoy?

This question has the potential to be long on clichés, but the right answer is that I never have to think twice about getting out of bed in the morning.

What is your biggest challenge right now and how are you dealing with it?

Ok, now it’s time for a clichés. My favorite expression is from Alan Kay, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” In the software development (technology) business we are reminded of this expression daily. We have to constantly reinvent ourselves.

What has been your proudest moment as a small business owner?

I’m going to equate pride with reward and say my most rewarding moment was when an employee, I held in high regard, walked into my office, and stuck out his hand. We shook hands and I asked him, “What is this all about?” He said, “You promised me within five years, I would be making “x-amount” of dollars per year and I am. Thanks.”

My proudest moment was March 7, 2013 when we celebrated 25 years in business.

What have you not yet achieved that you would like to?

I’m not a “bucket list” kind of guy. Certainly I have revenue goals and long-term objectives for the business. Call it 20/20, annual twenty (20) percent growth in both revenue and profit. The real challenge is balancing the physical challenges with the mental challenges. Next year, I’m looking forward to both cross-country skiing and cycling around Crater Lake.

What is the best part of your day?

Getting out on my bike for an hour or two in the middle of a work day, and not getting run over.

What do you read?

I’m reading an amazing, gut-wrenching, inspirational story of personal struggle and entrepreneurship titled Born to Rise: A Story of Children and Teachers Reaching Their Highest Potential by Deborah Kenney

What has been your biggest mistake and how did you learn from it?

I’ve made many. I’m going to make many more. My biggest mistake would be not to learn from them.

Filed under Cycling, entrepreneurs, leadership, Rants, sleepless, Small Business, startup, Talent Tagged with small business

It’s Work, Avoiding Work

February 14, 2013 by Idea Capitalist 1 Comment

Get a job!

Below is an example of someone who “works” at avoiding work, see the Ad below and the email response.

The Mainstream Media (MSM) and the White House (WH) brand their own heroes, like the entire Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. No matter what type of movement OWS stands for, including bowel movements, they get a pass.

If you watch the MSM and believe their version of the story, you are being “programmed” for failure. If you are under-privileged, disadvantaged, abused, down on your luck, to the MSM, you can be a hero. You can be on the Front Page. If you do something the MSM programs as good, it erases everything else that’s bad. Bad doesn’t matter.

MSM says… Out of work, good, successful, bad. Pacifist good, warrior bad.

Chris Kyle

There are many everyday heroes, who go about their business, tirelessly, day in, day out, giving it all they’ve got, not giving in, or giving up, to make this world a better place.

If you are up at 4 AM, at work by 5, slinging hash by 6, you’re just another working stiff, chances are, exit Stage Left, no one is interested.

The MSM, they don’t get it. They’re not up at 4 AM. If they are, it’s not to share donuts and coffee with the local cops, or to understand who the real American are.

The real heroes are the everyday, every time, everywhere kind of people, who pay their taxes, to take care of those of you who are on unemployment, those of you on food stamps, those of you on welfare, and those of you with your Obama phones.

If you are, say over 50…? you’ve heard the jingle, “The best part of life, is Folgers in your cup!” It’s a jingle embedded in our lives. We may not live the jingle, but we won’t forget it. Great advertising! What if the White House came up with a less than forgettable jingle of their own?

How about, “The best part of life, is people giving it all they have.” or “The best part of giving, is not giving up.”

Instead the WH advertises dependency (see a Craig’s List job’s ad response below).

Granted some of the “heroes”, are real life heroes, but only in a moment in time, and like most ordinary folks, they’re just giving it all they’ve got.

If you are on any government program and deservedly so, , you should be very concerned about the freeloaders who make it their job, to thwart the system. Case in point, a fellow small business looking for an office manager, placed an ad on Craig’s List.

Here’s an example of a freeloader “at work avoiding work”, the Ad and the email response (below):

Plain and simple. If you are on Federal Unemployment, you are required to seek employment, right? Is this is how you apply for a job?

Many Americans work very hard. Many start early and work late into the night. Many of us are tired of the lies, and of people taking the easy way out.

We’re tired of the MSM giving lazy, shiftless people a pass, especially Harry Reid and the US Senate.

We’re also tired hearing commercial snippets on NBC (owned by GE) where Brian Williams, tells us to “go green” and turn off the lights. when we leave a room. No problem Brian. We’ll turn off NBC. Exit Stage Right.

Filed under Conservative, Go Green, Gun control, income tax, leadership, Liberal Media, mainstream media, Marco Rubio, middle class, MSM, Musings, NFIB, Obamacare, Occupy Wall Street, Rants, Republican, Small Business, stimulus Tagged with Barack Obama, big government, buffet rule, go green, Occupy Wall Street, small business, social security, Tax credit; Buffet Rule; Warren Buffet

Obamalies – Lies Repeatedly About the National Debt

February 13, 2013 by Idea Capitalist 2 Comments

Obamalies Video – click on POTUS

Excellent video of Obama’s deceptive speeches about the national debt, that undeniably undermine Obama’s incessant promises NOT to increase our national debt with his proposed new spending programs.

I guess its endemic.

“Clinton lied. A man might forget where he parks or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is.”
― Barbara Bush

The Quote of the Decade:

“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America ‘s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America ‘s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that, ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.”

~ Senator Barack H. Obama, March 2006

Filed under Small Business

It Is Time for Tough Love

February 8, 2013 by Idea Capitalist 1 Comment

Tough Love vs. Dependency

Dependency – not confident, prone to mistakes, indecisive, desires security and support, fears having no guidance or support, frequently feels envious, not productive without reassurance, gets very attached to people, feels guilty when they disagree with people, seeks acceptance and recognition from peers, dramatizes their suffering, impressionable, can be talked into doing things, fears being unwanted or unworthy of love, never knows what to do next, personality is centered around low self esteem issues, swayed by emotions, can’t handle people being mad at me, freezes up in stressful situations, influenced more by others than self, avoids responsibilities, life lacks direction, prone to paranoia, prone to shame, daydreams about people to maintain a sense of closeness

Does the government breed dependency? Certainly, for many, and not for all the right reasons. There are kids growing up on welfare, who don’t know any better. They don’t choose entitlements, entitlements choose them. Entitlements are all they know.

As a teacher’s aide, my wife worked in a dropout prevention program. There was a young women she had taken under her wing. Our family welcomed her and her younger sister into our home and we treated them like family.

These young girls were basically in the same age group as our own daughters. We did a lot of family functions, meals, movies, theme parks, etc… together.

When their behavior became more aggressive,when they began expecting to receive special treatment, whereby our own daughters did not, it was time to end the party. Tough love.

Tough love? Thinking back, there was never really any real familial love. There was caring, a lot of caring. The plight of these girls still tugs at the heart string of our own family members, but there was no familial love given, for that matter, none shared.

It was a voluntary union by all, arguably a noble union. No one really got hurt, right? This was what we knew. This was what we considered acceptable behavior. Others would consider doing much less, and find it acceptable behavior.

Why do seemingly noble gestures tend to haunt us? Most of us “do-gooders” never learn from the ensuing realities.

Like Erich Fromm wrote about many years ago, in his book The Sane Society, as a society we’ve stopped short of loving. One of my favorite Fromm observations, is also the most thought-provoking.

“Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go. How can I judge that it will stay forever, when my act does not involve judgment and decision.”
― Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

Loving someone is very, very, tough to do. And according to Fromm, love is an art. To become a master artist, you have to practice long hours, every day. I would have to say “tough love” is becoming a “lost art.” Does the absence of love breed dependency? Is Fromm right? Is our society going insane?

Filed under Celebrities, Musings, Rants Tagged with big government, Christianity, Democracy, small business

Romney Was Right! Small Business Owners Are Getting Screwed!

February 2, 2013 by Idea Capitalist 2 Comments

I have been shouting from the roof tops about small business owners getting screwed by the Obama Administration’s “drum beating” campaign of class warfare to tax the rich. Small businesses without a capital infusion from Venture Capitalists (VC) or angel investors, take many years to grow and become profitable.

Our investment capital comes from our own savings accounts, 2nd mortgages and personal loans. We work immeasurable hours and spend our own money to build our businesses, while our famous “You Didn’t Build That” president, Obama, is trying to take all that away.

Small business owners are not “rich.” They are getting screwed by Big Government and Big Business because they pay their taxes as individuals if they file as a Sub Chapter S or LLC corporations that pass all income down to the individual small business owner.

Now, as part of the fiscal cliff deal, higher taxes have become a reality for many small business owners. Obama has done a great job of pitting the poor against the rich at the expense of the middle class, of which, include most small business owners.

The election’s over. Romney was right! Small Business Owners Are STILL Getting Screwed by Obama and his cronies!

Romney in the first 2012 presidential debate was absolutely right when he said, “The gap between the rich and the poor has gotten larger. The rich will probably do fine if he (Obama) is reelected,” Romney said. “It is the middle class that is in real trouble. And the poor. I want the poor to get into the middle class. So many have fallen into poverty by virtue of his (Obama’s) policies. So this for me is all about the 100 percent.”

The Business Roundtable comprised of 150 of its corporate titans, in return for various forms of “pork” threw small business under the bus. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Big Business Sells Out Small Business, “One million small American business owners who pay individual income taxes shoulder a big rate hike (up to 39.6%, from 35%) while radically lightening the tax load for the Roundtable’s own corporate behemoths (to 28% from 35%).”

Additionally, when a separate bill is passed to lower corporate tax rates, by which any corporate tax reform will hinge upon on closing “loopholes” to pay for a lower corporate rate. Small business owners would lose tax perks along with everyone else—meaning they would pay even more—but they would not benefit from lower corporate rates.

As reported by the Blaze, Who’s Really Selling Out Small Business, “The $625 billion tax increase passed. Big business didn’t get their corporate tax cut…yet. But boy did they get goodies $40 billion in crony capitalism payoffs. The new tax bill gives away $78 million in tax breaks to benefit NASCAR; $62 million in tax credits for companies operating in American Samoa; $222 million of tax rebates to rum companies; $430 million in tax rebates for Hollywood film producers; $12 billion (with a “b”) in tax credits for wind power phonies like GE; $2.2 billion to renewable diesel companies; and $222 million in accelerated tax depreciation for businesses located on Indian reservations. Many of these companies will pay no taxes at all because of these rebates and credits.”

Much of the money small businesses earn, gets taxed as individual income, and would be reinvested in their businesses. The naysayers would say, the money that is reinvested in the business is tax deductible because it can be expensed and therefore is not taxable. The problem with that theory is a little thing called cash flow. Cash flow is the Holy Grail of small business, money held in reserve, money not yet spent, which is essential for a small business, money that fuels business growth. That money is is taxed as individual income for a small business owner.

Finally, there will be so called experts, that will say change your filing to a “C” Corp. Without getting into all the details, every small business looks at the pluses and minuses of S Corp. vs. C Corp, vs. LLC etc… and a properly run small business will know best how to file their taxes. Only they would know, based on their situation, what’s best when it comes to filing their taxes. If you think you know better, start your own damned business and see how that goes. I’ll still be shouting from the rooftops, that small business owners are getting screwed!

Here’s a small business owners take on how small businesses are being sold down the river by this administration and he voted for Obama. Gia Pronto owner Marco Lentini on how government policies’ are impacting small business growth. Is Government Getting in the Way of Small Business?

Filed under Conservative, entrepreneurs, income tax, leadership, middle class, NFIB, Politicians, Republican, Small Business, taxes Tagged with Barack Obama, big government, Mitt Romney, NFIB, Romney, small business

There Is No Lance

January 19, 2013 by Idea Capitalist 1 Comment

I’m no Lance. You’re no Lance. There is no Lance.

Since early childhood I have lived by the creed, before you judge someone else, “put yourself in the other person’s shoes.” I am a cyclist, albeit, a sorry ass one at best. Sadly I will never be compared to the elite cyclists one speaks of, in the same breath, with Lance Armstrong.

I am and will remain a huge supporter of Livestrong. The work Livestrong does for cancer victims is excellent and incontrovertible. The organization and the people behind it, sans Armstrong, are absolutely amazing.

Even before Lance’s true confession, I have tried to put myself in Lance’s shoes. First and foremost, it becomes extremely difficult, unless you have been diagnosed, been treated and lived with a life threatening cancer.

There are many of Lance’s detractors who have never had cancer, let alone been on a bike seat, or experienced the extreme sport of competitive cycling or can even begin to appreciate his inimitable brilliance and determination.

Still there will be many of Lance’s detractors who have been diagnosed with cancer, so thank God, I’m at a distinct disadvantage here. I can fall back on the fact I have one sister who is a breast cancer survivor, another sister who is battling breast cancer as I write this.

I am here to say, I have a serious problem with many of Lance’s detractors who have never experienced his amazing journey from serious life threatening testicular and brain cancer to recovery. Back to trying to put myself in Lance’s shoes, as a cancer survivor, in his case, it was nothing short of being raised from the dead.

The problem is he had already doped. He already knew how to dope. He knew the culture of doping in pro cycling. He knew other elite athletes in his profession were doping. So he doped. Somehow he won. It was off to the races.

His genius and competitive furor brings to mind Steve Jobs and his achievements in cycling why competing with co-conspirators were immeasurable. If you have read the book or studied the life and work of Steve Jobs, the comparison to Steve Jobs, is to say Armstrong is also a complete asshole. It begs the question, is ruthless determination, the price one must pay to celebrate incomparable success?

The saddest of all, for me in this and for other cycling enthusiasts is the effigy of a championship cyclist. We may never know. How tragic. Lance will never know. We will never know if he was truly a great champion. If in fact, if there was someone who rode clean, who could remotely challenge Lance, will we ever know who the greatest cyclist(s) in the history of the sport is, truly?

I will say this, if they were complicit in any way, they aren’t going to receive a pass. If they were innocent and Lance rolled over them, he needs to make it right. I would hope he would. If not, he’s still the biggest loser, because this is one of his only means of redemption. The other, is to protect and nurture his love for his family, especially his children.

I can’t remotely place myself in Lance’s shoes when it comes to his admonitions, accusations and confessions. Lance was larger than life. For a time, Lance’s achievements were larger than his lies. No more.

In the end, none of his perceived success either on the pro circuit or in his work for charity can be applauded. Neither can it be easily and lightly be disparaged and denigrated. Why? Simply, no one can ever possibly imagine, or conceive to “put yourself in Lance Armstrong’s shoes.” Lance Armstrong is an enigma.

I’m no Lance. You’re no Lance. There is no Lance.

What I know for certain is we can Livestrong!

Filed under bike tour, bikeMS, Celebrities, Cycling, cyclists, export, leadership, Liberal Media, mainstream media, Musings, Rants Tagged with armstrong, bicycling, cycling, lance, lance armstrong

Obamacare – In “Exchange” for Your Freedom

January 13, 2013 by Idea Capitalist 2 Comments

Obamacare is government run healthcare in “Exchange” for your freedom.

There’s likely a Big Government run Healthcare Exchange coming to a neighborhood near you. Well…maybe not. View the video State of Uncertainty (fast forward to about 55 seconds). What a cluster and huge waste of taxpayers dollars!

From what I have read in the 644 page document, Final Rule State Healthcare Exchanges called SHOP, from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the final rules that address small business are still up in the air. Here’s why…

It takes a pack of lawyers to make comments like this…

“Consistent with the scope of the Exchange establishment and eligibility proposed rules, this final rule does not address all of the Exchange provisions in the Affordable Care Act; rather, more details will be provided in forthcoming guidance and future rule making, where appropriate.”

“The final rule does not address all of the insurance exchange provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and additional rules will address those, according to the rule.”

Huh!!?? My interpretation of the final rule, “We’re all going to get screwed!”

Obamacare is a lawyer’s dream! In a country as litigious as the USA and a law this broad, full of waivers, waivers that award Obama fund raisers), exceptions and rules yet undefined; instituting this law is insanely apropos?! Forever and beyond, the justice system will be buried with lawsuits! Small businesses will suffer, who can’t afford lawyers and who can’t afford the paperwork explosion.

In the meantime, Big Brother is just getting started! Wait until you have to drag your ass into a government run gym!

“SHOP may want to fulfill additional functions outside the scope of the proposed rule in order to offer employers a streamlined experience when managing their employee benefits. These commenters’ proposed that the SHOP sell other types of insurance, administer COBRA on behalf of participating employers, administer flexible spending accounts, assist small employers in setting up Section 125 plans, and oversee wellness programs.” “We will take these comments into account as we consider future guidance on the offering of other products on the Exchange.”

Let’s get a sense of how many people that might affect. Today, over 90 million Americans, or 75% of all working Americans, are employed by firms that have 50 or more employees.

Not to mention the cost to small businesses. With the average annual cost of employer-provided health insurance premiums for Single coverage set at $5,615, employers will only avoid Obamacare’s employer penalty head tax of $3,000 for their employees who earn more than $59,105 per year.

As an owner of a small business with thirty-five (35) full-time employees (FTEs) and counting, to fifty (50) do I want to grow my business?! I think…NOT!

Filed under NFIB, Obamacare, Politicians, Rants, Republican, Small Business Tagged with big brother, big government, NFIB, small business

idea capitalist – some of my recent favorite tweets – 01-2013

January 11, 2013 by Idea Capitalist Leave a comment

idea capitalist ‏@ideacapitalist - @TonyaW66 Thanks for the great pic! I’m captioning it, “Our First Kiss!” or “Looking forward to a moment of silence.” pic.twitter.com/AWsL9rrW

ideacapitalist – Can you visualize the Obama’s in this picture of the President and First Lady in this photo?

Can you visualize this President and First Lady in this photo?pic.twitter.com/ASMwD8hm

Tammy Hays ‏@tammyjohays - Has anyone checked George Washington’s grave lately….thinking he may be face down by now.

idea capitalist ‏@ideacapitalist - BILL CLINTON NAMED ‘FATHER OF THE YEAR’ - When he said, “I did not have sex with that woman,” he was probably talking about Hillary. Sick society. http://bit.ly/VOdtcB

Craigé ‏@CraigR3521 - Maybe Mitt needs to send his binders full of women to the White House.

Craig ‏@bitslaw - Krauthammer: Gun Bans Are Placebos, “It Doesn’t Hurt Anybody And You Feel Better” http://ht.ly/2uc99P

Chris Ryan ‏@thestreeter - If these politicians REALLY cared about us, they’d mint a coin valuable enough that none of had to work again. Selfish bastards.

ANNA RAND ‏@OBAMA_CZAR - Biden talked about Obama taking action. “As the president said, if you’re actions result in only saving one life, they’re worth taking.”

Sixchain ‏@sixchained -

@OBAMA_CZAR Just think of how many lives he would have saved if maybe he hadn’t shipped an assload of guns to the Mexican cartel?

idea capitalist ‏@ideacapitalist - I never understood how you could get your cake/eat it too, until Obama started his war on job creators. Lesson learned.

Melanie Jones ‏@MsMelanie -

HILLARY’S HEALTH ISSUES: When a reporter asked Bill Clinton, “How’sHillary’s head?” He replied, “Well………. she’s no Monica.

idea capitalist ‏@ideacapitalist - Can you get excommunicated for tweeting the Pope? I’m waiting to find out.

Filed under MSM, Politicians, Rants, Republican, Small Business, social media, twitter, youtube Tagged with Barack Obama, big government, Joe Biden, republican, Ronald Reagan, small business, Social network, Twitter

Santa Claus Is Still Coming To Town

December 24, 2012 by Idea Capitalist 1 Comment

Santa Claus Is Still Coming To Town

We’ll not forget the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, CT.

While we grieve the slaughter of innocents, this tragic act serves as a reminder of how precious, how fragile, the gift of life is.

Whatever your religious beliefs, let’s not forget to appreciate the Christmas spirit.

Set aside your politics and prejudice, the spirit of Christmas is about giving. In the spirit of Christmas, we need to turn to those we love, family and friends and give of ourselves.

Not to pontificate, it’s easy for people this time of year to find a reason to be unhappy. Let’s not forget those less fortunate and find joy in all we have been given.

These lyrics from Santa Claus is Coming to Town come to mind…

You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Holidays! And be good for goodness sake!

Filed under Event, MSM, Musings, Rants Tagged with Christian, Christianity, Christmas, Santa Claus

If a Pilot Can Carry, Why Not a Teacher?

December 18, 2012 by Idea Capitalist Leave a comment

No, it won’t fit in the cockpit.

If a Pilot Can Carry, Why Not a Teacher? Crazy, I know, but isn’t it crazy someone shot 20 defenseless 1st Graders and their teachers? Isn’t it crazy to take the same guns criminals use out of the hands of private citizens?

After the Sandy Hook shooting, I heard a newscaster say, “Let’s try to make sense out of this senseless violence.” You cannot make sense out of senseless violence. So what does make sense?

Does it make sense for teachers to “carry” in schools across the country? First reaction seems to be “hell no” not around my children! After 9-11-2001, consider, your children may have been or will be on a flight to Grandma’s house and the pilot on your flight may be carrying. That’s OK? After 9-11, no one seems to have a problem with a pilot having a gun. Maybe parents, who don’t want teachers to carry, think teachers can’t handle a gun as well as an airplane pilot? If a kid wanting an easy target, knew teachers were carrying, wouldn’t they think twice? Maybe teachers should carry? Otherwise the carnage will continue.

Israeli teacher – rifle

There’s a lack of involvement and a lack of caring with regard to parent and teachers in schools today, these same parents that are for gun control. They expect to drop the kids off at school and they become someone else’s problem. My spouse worked in the classroom. I know a number of teachers who work in the classroom and most of them are disenchanted with the parents and the system. Some of them complain about the behavioral problems with the students. So come to think of it, maybe teachers shouldn’t be allowed to carry guns? If my spouse was still in the classroom and it was legal to carry, I would want her to carry. The only other way I see around this senseless slaughter in schools, would be to ensure armed guards carrying equal to or superior weaponry to that which can be obtained on the streets, were guarding the school. Otherwise the carnage will continue.

I’m all for gun control. Gun control should consist of taking guns out of the hands of criminals, including mentally deranged would be, or soon to be criminals. Concentrate on the would be criminals and the criminals who seek to do harm. Otherwise the carnage will continue.

If you want to take assault weapons away from law abiding citizens, you need to ensure and assure them, would be criminals and criminals can’t win the arms race. If you want to limit the ownership, the manufacture or the method by which assault weapons are built, you need to make sure these weapons can’t be altered, modified or made by other societies that allow would be criminals or criminals access to these guns. Otherwise the carnage will continue.

I hope calm heads prevail, that both sides of the gun control argument will roll back the rhetoric, examine the laws and proposed legislation already on the table and make some apolitical, bipartisan decisions that can prevent more senseless violence. After all one of the most sage advice given to a person grieving a recent loss, is not to make any major decisions for at least one year after a major loss. Maybe as a nation, we should heed that good advice.

Tell lawmakers to concentrate on taking guns out of the hands of the bad guys, but take the time necessary and make a decision on gun control everyone can live with.

Filed under Gun control Tagged with gun control

The “Physical” Cliff, Writing Checks My Ass Can’t Cash

December 10, 2012 by Idea Capitalist 1 Comment

The “Physical Cliff”

I kid around about reaching the “physical cliff”, where my body reaches the point whereby I can no longer sustain my anatomy. If I don’t start getting back on the bike it could be I’m heading for a period of hyper-inflation (around my middle) and resulting in my declaring my own “ass warfare.”

Getting serious about the next time I get a “physical” what is it going to cost me and other taxpayers? While everyone is paying close attention to the “Fiscal Cliff” what is happening to taxpayers right now and has been happening to us since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed?

What we had shoved down our throats, we’re now going to being paying for with taxpayer money. Money our proverbial asses can’t cash.

Talk about subsidizing “Big Oil”, what about “Big Medicine?” Now my Doctor’s fingers spend more time on the keyboard than they do with an exam. My prostrate is getting jealous!

CMS – Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, in case you haven’t heard, has bragging rights to all of 8 Billion and more, so far, and rising rapidly, they are giving to hospitals and professional service providers for EHR – Electronic Health Records expenditures.

Supposedly the Obama Administration’s theory is that Hospitals and Professional Service Providers are too stupid to invest in technology, so they decided to give them a push. Right over the Fiscal Cliff with the rest of us. Well apparently Big Medicine isn’t as stupid as they think, because CMS is writing big checks and proud of it!

You can’t make this stuff up (Source :CMS).

More than $4.4 billion in Medicare EHR Incentive Program payments have been made between May 2011 and October 31, 2012.
More than $3.7 billion in Medicaid EHR Incentive Program payments have been made between January 2011 (when the first set of states launched their programs) and October 31, 2012.
More than 326,000 eligible professionals, eligible hospitals, and critical access hospitals are actively registered in the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs

Here’s your road map: (Source: HealthIT.gov)

Let’s not for get the EHR Vendors. The government again’s picking winners and losers.

Unfortunately, the legislation was funded in a way that benefits large companies instead of promoting competition to improve software quality and lower overall cost.

Once the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) were signed into law, the “gold rush” was on (as described by one of our competitors²), or as The Onion News reported it: Recession Plagued Nation Demands New Bubble to Invest In.

Whether or not you are in favor of giving taxpayer money to executives to fly around the country in private jets, the stimulus money is starting to flow – and many providers are eligible (and a lot more deserving).

Source: AmazingCharts

²“I literally rent [an] airplane every Tuesday morning, and I hit five cities by Thursday night, every week. I’m cold calling . . . that’s my life now. It’s like any government fiscal stimulus thing — it’s a gold rush.’’

Jonathan Bush, CEO, Athenahealth Inc. (from Boston Globe 8/5/2010)

Maybe we need the Mainstream Media (MSM) to pick up on this story. They could report on on all the hospitals and doctors that needed to upgrade their IT infrastructure or close their doors. Heaven forbid, we would have to outsource our patient care to foreign soil.

Filed under Fair Tax, Flat tax, income tax, Liberal Media, mainstream media, middle class, Obamacare, Rants, Republican, Small Business, stimulus, taxes Tagged with Barack Obama, big government, fairtax, flat tax, income tax, payroll tax, payroll tax holiday, republican, small business

How Do You Spend a Trillion Dollars a Year and Not Cure Cancer?

November 28, 2012 by Idea Capitalist 1 Comment

How do you spend a trillion dollars a year, over 4 trillion dollars in less than 4 years, and not cure cancer? For that matter, the common cold. Why are we not a nation disease free? Where are our priorities? What were we thinking?

This is getting personal. I have three sisters. My youngest sister was diagnosed with breast cancer and she is a breast cancer survivor Now my oldest sister has been diagnosed with breast cancer. It’s no longer about Obama simply reaching into my wallet. It’s not so much about the money anymore. It’s about the waste. It’s about wasted time, wasted money and wasted resources. Tic-toc, cancer is rampant and destroying more and more lives. Government waste is a cancer, too. Here is a case in point: Millions Spent on Storytelling Science.

Do you want to see real gains in life saving procedures and reduced medical expenses? News flash!!! Put your money and energy behind curing the disease. One of the most appealing aspects of Obamacare is providing for coverage to people who have preëxisting conditions. I’m all for that. Make the insurance companies toe the line. My contention is, what if preëxisting conditions didn’t exist? Cure cancer. There would be a lot fewer preëxisting conditions if we attacked the real problem, cancer.

What if Obama had the cojones to take back the $16 Billion he gave to his mega-rich campaign donors, including blowhards like Ted Turner, recipient of around 1 billion in green energy money from Obama, for failed green energy initiatives and put that money it towards cancer research? No. Now that he’s been reelected at all cost, we’re $16 Trillion in debt. Now it’s everybody’s problem that our healthcare is going to be too expensive for many small businesses because we are going to be taxed. If you want to blame Bush or the Republicans, argue your case with John Roberts, Chief Justice, Supreme Court.

All politicians have it wrong when it comes to priorities on health issues, but the Mainstream media and Hollywood have placed the focus on our savior and savant, Barack Obama. All this President was about was keeping his job by dividing America, the have’s and the have-nots’. He succeeded. All President Obama has done is grow a new cancer. A cancer that is equally daunting and will grow as our economy shrinks under his leadership. Get to the source of the problem. Why waste time and money on Obamacare? Why not cure cancer? That’s what a real leader would be all about.

Murder by guns vs. cancer, a look at our current death toll in this country (based on trends – not actual numbers). —> 2012 Mortality statistics for USA

Filed under Go Green, MS, Rants, Republican, Small Business, stimulus, taxes Tagged with Barack Obama, big government, bikeMS, go green, income tax, livestrong, small business

Small Businesses – Over Regulated? Thousands of Community Banks a.k.a Small Businesses May Disappear!

November 10, 2012 by Idea Capitalist 2 Comments

In 2012, 6,037 new regulations posted in the last 90 days

Our small business, with under 50 employees, does business with community financial institutions (FIs). We are subjected to many of the regulations FIs are subjected to including:

Sarbanes–Oxley Act

Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act

Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act

Credit CARD Act of 2009

…to name a few. This equates to many thousands of dollars in added security measures and personnel costs.

We now face another huge challenge, none more onerous than the PPACA (a.k.a. Obamacare) as it ramps up.

Many community banks and credit unions are small businesses too and are subject to the same laws and regulations facing big banks. The Feds have closed down 10 of our FI customers, costing them their jobs and costing us hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenues. Speaking to many of our contacts at these FIs, most closing could have been avoided.

According to several of these sources, the Feds come in at the end of business day, Friday and take over the bank. One source, described it similar to be treated as a criminal as she was forced to stand outside her cubicle while they accessed her PC. She was kept there until after midnight.

Recently, an expert on financial services stated “there will be no de novo (startups) financial institutions due to the steep financial requirement and regulations.”

A quote recent article from CNN Money’s Fortune Magazine, Thousands of banks may disappear, “Now that President Obama has been re-elected, analysts, consultants and deal makers have turned from whether Dodd-Frank will be repealed to what it means for banks now that it’s likely here to stay. The overwhelming conclusion: Thousands of small banks will soon disappear.”

As the number of community banks and credit unions shrink we are forced to seek new markets. An added burden to already burdensome economic conditions. While the Obama administration panders to big business, big union and advocates big government, small businesses continue to bear the brunt of over regulation.

This is the official government “fair warning” website regulations.gov. Be afraid! Be very afraid!

Filed under Compliance, Conservative, Obamacare, Small Business, startup Tagged with Barack Obama, big government, small business, unions

Photo OP on BENGHAZI from the Situation Room, NOT!

October 30, 2012 by Idea Capitalist 4 Comments

Sandy Storm Situation Room Photo OP. What about BENGHAZI?!

Previously reported on Benghazi here

The Headstone on the Benghazi Terror Attack Will Read – R.I.P. 9/11/2012 – NOW 05/15/2013

247 DAYS and Counting! Mainstream Media (MSM), you have the Sandystorm PhotoOp. Now where is the PhotoOp from the Situation Room during the 7 hour Sh!tstorm called Benghazi? Four brave Americans died!!! on 9/11!!!

Case in point…Brian Williams, Obama’s butt buddy. As Obama goes, so goes Brian. Why? It’s hard to imagine Romney and Williams as best buds. Leno’s already taken a 50% pay cut to stay on the air. Williams makes $13M a year. What’s at stake? Romney sees Williams in a Big bird suit. So Brian talks about anything but Benghazi…

Filed under Uncategorized

The Headstone on the Benghazi Terror Attack Will Read – R.I.P. 9/11/2012 – NOW 05/15/2013

October 28, 2012 by Idea Capitalist 4 Comments

The Benghazi fait accompli – It’s NOW been 247 Days!

Like you need another blogger venting about the lack of reporting on the Benghazi terror attack! Sorry! If the mainstream media (MSM) has their way, I can envision the tombstone on the Benghazi terror attack will read R.I.P. 9/11/2012 – 11/06/2012. Now 05/15/2013.

Let’s not let this act of terror get buried, because the Benghazi terror attack is very much alive!

It’s 10/28/2012, 48 days after the attacks on the US embassy’s in the Middle East and the Benghazi debacle resulting in the murder of our US Ambassador Chris Stevens and leaving four Americans dead remains a mystery. We have no idea who the perpetrators are, and what we plan to do to bring them to justice. I fear we never will, if the Obama administration and the mainstream media have their way.

“On September 13 — two days after the attack — a senior U.S. official told CNN that the violence in Libya was not the work of “an innocent mob.” “The video or 9/11 made a handy excuse and could be fortuitous from their perspective, but this was a clearly planned military-type attack,” the official said.”

I Googled “benghazi and the mainstream media” and there’s nada! Thanks to Al Gore invention of the internet, Benghazi’s very much alive in the Twitter-sphere. So much so, Obama and his Chicago thugs have had to keep changing their stories. The liberals on Twitter are uncharacteristically quiet on the topic of Benghazi. Chris Matthews titter feed @hardball_chris on Benghazi, nada! I checked Rachel Maddow’s twitter feed @maddow on Benghazi, again, nada!

While NBC Meet the Press with David Gregory aired on 10-28-2012, he totally passed the buck, saying he would get to Benghazi later, he didn’t. Fox News Sunday and Bob Schieffer on CBS Face the Nation had John McCain on, who slammed Obama and his Administration. Thanks to a Fox News Special Report on Fox News, Brett Baier, airing on multiple days, in multiple time slots, this stories not going away. There’s no denying this is a major cover-up or a major f$!k-up, most likely both. Stay tuned.

“The full story of what happened in Libya, down to the last detail, may never be known. But, as someone once said, you don’t need to eat a whole egg to know that it is rotten. And you don’t need to know every detail of the events before, during and after the attacks to know that the story put out by the Obama administration was a fraud.” Thomas Sowell — Libya and Lies

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday that there was not a clear enough picture of what was occurring on the ground in Benghazi to send help.

“There’s a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking going on here,” Panetta said Thursday. “But the basic principle here … is that you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on.” Leon Panetta

“Oh, well I guess that the answer then Leon. If you don’t know what’s going on then you don’t do anything. There were a lot of heroes who died on 9/11—the first 9/11—who didn’t know what was going on, but they rushed into the World Trade Center. They rushed in because that was their job. They weren’t soldiers and they never expected to die. Not like that. But still I give them credit where credit is due. Rushing into a burning building takes bigger balls than I’ve got. You know what though? Can you imagine if instead of watching what we did, we had instead watched two towers on fire while a bunch of firemen and fire-engines sat at their stations?” Vantage Point of the One-Eyed Jack

An update on Benghazi by the ideacapitalists.com —> Photo OP on BENGHAZI from the Situation Room, NOT! followed the Hurricane “Sandy Storm” to bury the Benghazi “Sh!t Storm” which is Benghazi. When will the MSM rise from the dead? For the sake of the memories of those four brave men murdered, their families and the American people, let’s not rest until we bring these terrorists to justice and we know the truth about what the Obama administration knew and learn from our mistakes.

Filed under Liberal Media, Middle East, Politicians, Rants, Republican, twitter Tagged with Barack Obama, Benghazi, mainstream media, MSM

REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007…? THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!”

September 26, 2012 by Idea Capitalist 4 Comments

The disastrous results to the economy, lost jobs and the $16 Billion deficit as we near the end of the Obama Administration’s first term are the fault of the Democrats takeover of both Houses of Congress in 2007 and President Obama, NOT President George W. Bush!

What follows is a compilation of “talking points” from various sources cited below. Republicans need to fight back against Obama’s lame excuse, “It’s Bush’s fault.”

The Democrats took the majority in both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate at the very beginning of Bush’s second term, January 3rd 2007, 2 years before Obama took office.

The Democrats controlled the budget process for 2008 & 2009, as well as 2010 & 2011.

There’s a great article from the American Thinker called “It’s Not Bush’s Fault” by Ben Voth. I have paraphrased a bit but these points were pulled from this lengthy article almost verbatim.

A couple of the talking points are from other sources, including from the book, Throw Them All Out by Peter Schweizer. If you just read Chapter 5 of Schweizer’s book and it will turn your stomach. You will “throw them all out” including our illustrious president.

Talking points…

In the fall of 2006, the media and associated public culture celebrated the landslide win of Democrats in congressional elections that brought strong majorities in both the House and the Senate.

The U.S. Congress holds the exclusive constitutional power over spending.

Congress is charged with oversight roles regarding government economic activities such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee.

As key leaders Chris Dodd in the Senate and Barney Frank in the House received huge campaign support from these GSEs that held the majority of American mortgage finances.

Senator Obama was himself a tremendous recipient of campaign funding from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that controlled trillions of dollars in American mortgage equity. The government was not supervising its own interference in the free market.

The housing market in the U.S. devolved into a dangerous leveraged global gambling operation that financed a vulnerable house of cards over European banks.

The leadership of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac knew that the election of Democrats in the House and Senate would prevent any further calls by the Bush administration to tighten the regulations on these dangerous GSEs.

Just five years ago, here is a snapshot of the American economic scene when Democrats took control in January of 2007:

U.S. 2007 unemployment rate: 4.7 percent

U.S. 2007 deficit: 160 billion dollars

The unemployment rate was half the over ten-percent levels it would rise to under President Obama.

The long spell of high unemployment under President Obama and the slight fall in unemployment under President Obama is attributable to individuals giving up on seeking employment.

The tax cuts of the Bush administration had in fact produced record tax revenues — more than $2.5 trillion annually. Today, the government barely takes in $2 trillion.

The 160-billion-dollar deficit for 2007 was part of a larger downward trend from the past two years.

In 2009, while Barack Obama was a U.S, Senator, Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid passed continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama took office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the 2009 budgets. Barack Obama later signed the omnibus bill as President.

Today, annual deficits are ten times larger — surpassing the one-trillion-dollar mark with regularity.

Five years ago, the U.S. annual deficit was 90% lower than it is today.

The markets did not express a sense of relief upon the election of President Obama in early November 2008. What ensued was an economic panic.

Business leaders feared the coming onslaught of regulatory and redistributive fervor of President-Elect Obama and his supporters.

President Obama did not enact the bailout of GM and Chrysler. President Bush did. , As reported by Forbes, GM said this below about the bailout from President Bush in December of 2008:

GM Statement On U.S. Auto Industry ‘Bridge Loan

“We appreciate the President extending a financial bridge at this most critical time for the U.S. auto industry and our nation’s economy. This action helps to preserve many jobs, and supports the continued operation of GM and the many suppliers, dealers and small businesses across the country that depend on us…We know we have much work in front of us to accomplish our plan. It is our intention to continue to be transparent as we execute our plan, and we will provide regular updates on our progress.”

The Bush bailouts for both the financial industry and the auto industry required the funds to be paid back. In fact, in both bailouts, these funds have been paid back to the Treasury.

The success of bailouts — both for the recipients and more importantly for taxpayers reflects the fiscal conservatism and successes of the Bush administration. These were temporary emergency funding actions that were paid back by the recipients with interest.

The Obama budget office has switched the payback funds into general operating expenses of the nation that support his general revisions to stimulus that do not require recipients to repay — such as the funds for Solyndra.

As Ben Voth said in his article, It’s Not Bush’s Fault, “This is like a college student receiving an emergency bailout from parents after he wrecks his car and then insisting that a permanent increase in a weekly allowance now includes provision for a new wreck every week!”

Speaking of Solyndra, as part of the $700 Billion Stimulus, consider the Department of Energy (DOE) awarded over $16.4 Billion in loan guarantees to friends of, a.k.a., donors for Obama.

Solyndra will be considered chump change considering the likely demise of First Solar backed by $4.7 billion in DOE loan guarantees, as best described in The First Solar Swindle. Scroll half way down the article to read “Favoritism” and beyond to recognize why the Stimulus was doomed for failure.

It’s as Peter Schweizer said in his book, Throw Them All Out, Obama is all about “friends giving friends billions of our taxpayer money.”

Filed under Conservative, George Bush, Go Green, Liberal Media, Rants, Republican, stimulus Tagged with Barack Obama, big government, Bush's faultt, George Bush, go green, republican, small business

The Endangered Species, Entrepreneurs, a.k.a. Small Business Owners

August 28, 2012 by Idea Capitalist 3 Comments

President Obama is disingenuous when he says he is championing small business and the middle class. Most small business owners are Sole Proprietors, Limited Liability Corps (LLCs) or Sub S Corps. I own a Sub S Corp. President Obama knows the challenges I face. He is counting on you, the voter, to lump small business owners like me into his campaign to denigrate the high income earners in this country.

What he doesn’t want you to know is small business people, like me, often take a lesser salary, but often earn more than his definition of “rich” because I have to pay taxes on the combined total of my salary and my business earnings. Both are considered ordinary income. By ordinary income, I mean income you and I pay taxes on after pre-tax expenses and deductions, like anyone else earning 1099 or W-2 income.

Keep in mind the risk to a small business owner. If my business loses money, my salary and my business is in jeopardy. It is a constant challenge to a small business to earn enough money to employ people, to grow and still earn a salary, in that order. Contrast that with government subsidized businesses like GE and Solyndra. Imagine if President Obama had the vision to subsidize small businesses to the tune of Solyndra or GE. Take Solyndra’s $500 million in taxpayer dollars and give it to 500 small businesses, each with 20 employees or the equivalent of 1,000 employees. Take my company’s track record over the past 2 years and small businesses would have increased employment by 40%. I have a neighbor down the street who owns a small business, who increased his small business employment by 3-400 percent, without a government subsidy.

I run a small business, going on 25 years. I pay taxes on my salary as an employee of my business and on the income my small business earns, both as ordinary income. For many years, my business didn’t earn income. For many years, my salary was well below the poverty line. There were many years I was eligible for government assistance and I refused to take it.

How do you put a price on all the sacrifices a small business owner makes? How do you quantify the years of no or little income you live with while supporting your business and fellow employees. You pay their salary, you pay suppliers, you continue to pay them while you wait to get paid by your customers. How do you quantify the debt you assume, including 2^nd mortgages, credit cards, personal and bank loans. How do you quantify the risks you take only to emerge from that debt as a job creator. Only to be told, “You didn’t build that…,” the government built that.” You’re branded greedy, uncaring if you are a Christian who believes in the sanctity of life and racist? Like Mitt Romney I believe a women should have a choice to abort a pregnancy in the case of rape or incest, yet I’m extreme!?

My business is classified as an S Corp. Today my income tax rate on ordinary income due to the income my small business earns, in an Obama administration, in the next four years, if he is reelected, will be much higher, 35 – 44.5%. Today it’s 28%. From that point forward you can make the argument there are tax breaks, subsidies, deductions for both personal and business income.

Argue the advantages and disadvantages until the cows come home. The bottom line is the effective tax rate. The effective tax rate for most small businesses will increase from 28% to at least 35% . That’s huge. Even more significant, more important and what President Obama doesn’t want you to know is most small businesses reinvest the income they earn from their business back into their business on sales and marketing programs and personnel and consequently accounts receivable to grow. This practice creates jobs in all segments of the business. In my case, I reinvested one-half (1/2) my ordinary income in jobs and other current and performing assets, increasing employment (salaries by over 40 percent) in 2012 YTD alone.

If you are the CEO of GE and Obama’s schmoozer-in-chief, your salary, bonuses and investment income is taxed as personal income. There’s a good bet the CEO of GE paid little or no taxes on millions of dollars in income, certainly not at the same rate myself or other small business people paid. His company, GE paid no taxes in 2011. GE’s income was offset by losses, subsidies, tax breaks and expenses, claims I would wager could easily be overturned and taxes, interest and penalties would be significant. The problem is GE has always had their hand in the government’s pocket. There’s no secret there’s a love fest going on today between the Obama administration and GE.

What the Obama administration doesn’t want you to know about small business tax rates, is we pay taxes on ordinary income both on our salaries and on the money our business makes. As a rule of thumb, a small business owner will take one-half (1/2) of their income as salary and they will reinvest the other one-half (½) of their small business income back into their business. The small business investment I’m talking about isn’t about capital investments in equipment, furniture and other fixed assets. The investment I’m talking about is in operating income, including people, sales and marketing, accounts receivable which is the fuel the economy needs to grow. Operating income comes from small business revenues taxed as ordinary income.

In fact, even large corporations in America pay much higher corporate tax rates than most other countries. Our higher corporate tax rates are supported by the Obama Administration. A Romney administration would propose to lower corporate tax rates to be more competitive with other countries we compete with for business. The irony is Obama touts green energy and competing for high tech business but he will do nothing to lower the unfair advantage international competition has because their tax rates are much lower.

Here are the facts…

On taxes, President Barack Obama wants to raise “the top rate to 44.8 percent.”

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/may/18/paul-ryan/paul-ryan-says-barack-obama-wants-top-tax-rate-448/

Here’s a potential solution – Fairtax

Filed under Conservative, entrepreneurs, Go Green, income tax, leadership, middle class, Musings, NFIB, Obamacare, Occupy Wall Street, Payroll Tax, Rants, Republican, Small Business, startup, taxes Tagged with Barack Obama, big government, go green, income tax, NFIB, Occupy Wall Street, republican, small business, Tax credit, Tax credit; Buffet Rule; Warren Buffet

How to Communicate with High-Minded Liberals

August 8, 2012 by Idea Capitalist 5 Comments

Harry Reid

It’s been my experience it is highly doubtful high-minded liberals will listen to you if you have anything to say against this administration and the Democrats. If they do, they will try to either steamroll you with insults, misdirection and shameful attempts to bring on a guilt trip over a multitude of entitlement issues.

The best advice I have read comes from a Twitter contributor Wayne Dupree.

You can follow Wayne @NewsNinja2012. I’m not endorsing Wayne, only applauding sound advice. I could learn from him.

From Wayne:

When speaking w/liberals, be calm and always remember. Democrats Shift the subject, Ignore the facts, and if that doesn’t work, they begin name calling.

Wayne Dupree

Another suggestion is to do the math and deal with the facts.

Too often conservatives, in particular small business people like myself, take liberal bias personally, especially since we have to deal with a barrage of it daily. If we complain about the media the first thing they do is throw Fox News in your face. I disagree because Fox News is an hour long program that allows both points of view. I would agree O’Reilly, Hannity and many other programs are biased, but no more than NBC, ABC, CBS MSNBC and CNN for their liberal bias. I watch news and political broadcast on all the above mentioned networks, that way I feel I am being fair and balanced listening to many points of view. Sometimes it’s best to watch a sitcom and lately I have taken refuse in watching the Olympics.

A great source fact-finding sourcw is http://PoliticalCalculations.com a Blog that does the math and cites the facts.

Here are a few good examples:

If you listen to the mainstream media or read the news you would think Obamacare is going to save taxpayers money. Think again.

The Tax Burden of ObamaCare

If you think the CBO is projecting Obamacare is going to cut the deficit, think again.

Projecting the Personal Cost of ObamaCare

If you think Regulations are not burdensome on the American people, especially small business, think again. The scary part is Obama is going to wait until after the election to unleash a tsunami of addition regulation.

The Regulation of the American People

Again, if the argument gets personal, take the high road and walk away, stop Blogging, Facebooking or Tweeting with anyone who gets too personal.

You can’t talk about what you do with your money, how much you pay in taxes and how much you donate to charity. That’s too personal. The best you can do is agree-to-disagree.

Finally, once your discussion or argument’s ended, take some time to reflect and explore the other person’s point of view.

Maybe you can learn something new. Maybe the other person had a valid point or argument. Maybe your counterpart will have learned something, too. Highly unlikely, to be honest, but then you can always find solace after November 6^th, 2012.

Filed under Conservative, middle class, Obamacare, Republican, Small Business, twitter Tagged with Barack Obama, Harry Reid, small business

Wanna Get Away?

July 6, 2012 by Idea Capitalist 2 Comments

Where to turn, And oh, btw, best of luck.

I just read these stirringly emotional and impactful comments, from a nephew of mine on Facebook. Lesson learned. You’re never too old to learn. Of course, I had to share them.

Nick is a courier. It’s a tough job.

From my nephew Nick, “After an especially difficult day at work that almost meant not coming home, I’m having one of those life reflective sorta evenings.. I suppose it’s good that I’m in a good mood about it all, and glad the mistakes I’ve made have made me understand that most of us never get to walk on easy street and that everyone is a screw up on occasion. That I have a good family that may sometimes think they’re flawed, though they may not realize I prefer it that way.. A group of friends, several close, and a whole bunch far and wide, that I enjoy talking, joking with, and kicking back with.. I couldn’t replace one minute of my strange yet wonderful life!“

Nick isn’t wearing a mask. He is very matter-of-fact. When the I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapsed, he called his dad and said, “I was just over that bridge less than 10 minutes ago.”

I35 bridge collapse

More from Nick. “And to the clueless motorist that ran that light, putting your life in my hands to send that probably unimportant text message and not watching what you were doing, be thankful that I’ve been at this game for years and that the ditch I hit going full speed wasn’t your car and that I was able to keep that rickety work van wheels down and not hit the line of oncoming innocent bystanders on that 2 lane highway there as I regained the reigns.

There are many of us out there that just wanna pay our bills the only way we currently know how, and to make it home when the work day is done.

Please, just pay attention out there. Nothing you can do in the car is important as concentrating on driving and on what’s going on around you.”

Nick, in conclusion, “Truth is, I like what I do.. Though it’d be nice if the pay was better, I don’t feel like I need much of a light on me or the work I do.. As for the optimism, I try to stay that way as the only other option doesn’t do anyone any good. Too many people drown in their sorrows these days. I don’t wanna be one of them! Better to enjoy the finer moments and weather the not so great ones, thus the reason I don’t hold a grudge on said motorist from today…”

Priceless, yes? A VISA commercial, no; but there’s a Southwest Airlines commercial in here somewhere. Help me out!

Filed under middle class, Musings, Rants Tagged with friends, Occupy Wall Street, small business

“If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” Friedrich Nietzsche

May 1, 2012 by Idea Capitalist 2 Comments

I made a point to take my two young daughters to NYC shortly after 911 even though they missed the ascent to the top of the Statue of Liberty for security reasons, they were able to ascend to the top of the Empire State Building.

”Today the World Trade Center is again the tallest building in New York one year after the killing of Osama bin Laden and more than 10 years after the attacks that brought them down. It is still a work in progress: The hulking steel structure known as the Freedom Tower is still 500 feet shorter than it will be when complete. But it is already a tribute to American resilience, a reminder that whatever devastation we face, we can still come back bigger and better than before.” Aaron Vaughan

Tallahassee Fire Dept Extrication Team. Liberty Street across from Ground Zero

I can understand where the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is coming from. I was young once upon a time. I took sociology in college and a course called American Ghetto Environment, if you can imagine how “not PC” that course name would be today. I wanted to help people who had a hard time helping themselves.A Nelson DeMille character in the General’s Daughter reflected, while “Life’s Grown Soft, I’ve Grown Hard,” reflecting on growing up in a post WWII era. Life was hard. Today life is soft by comparison. There are plenty of folks out there that deserve help. I say “help” because I detest the word “entitled.” To me the word entitlement defines a benefit given someone in need, not in want. Our so called entitlement programs, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, other mandatory spending programs were programs designed for hard working people who need and whenever possible contributed to their own welfare.

A lifetime of work experience allows me to say there are people who believe everyone regardless of work ethic and moral fiber are entitled to the American Dream and those who believe the American Dream is earned through a good work ethic and morals. I am from a middle class family. I was the second child of six. I was always wanting but never needing. If I wanted something I would find a way to get it. Ok, I could pout with the best of ‘em for a nickel package of bubble gum and baseball cards. Mostly I learned to earn what I wanted. Since the age of 11-12, I always had an after school job, be it paper route, bagger or stock boy at a local grocer. In high school I washed pots and pans in the cafeteria on my lunch hour. Later, I was promoted to making and serving milk shakes and sandwiches to my fellow students. If you have ever worked in a school cafeteria at age 16, worn a hair net, while serving sandwiches to your fellow students, in particular, the girl you had a huge crush on, you would understand the price you pay to earn a few extra dollars.

During college, I worked for a janitorial service from 4 – 7 AM daily at a local hotel to help supplement my $15 per week expense allowance. Summers I worked on a crew with 3 occupational day laborers, landscaping and mowing lawns. My boss was a machine operator and had a landscaping business on the side.

He made me, the 18 year old college kid the crew chief. I made less than my crew, but I wanted a job. My crew was ages 18, 30-something and 40-something. 18 had a wife and a new baby. He showed up for work every day. If he didn’t want to work, he’d sit in the shade and smoke. He outweighed me times-two and that was just his arms. If I pressed him to pick up his shovel, he wanted to arm wrestle or place a lit cigarette between our forceps to see who would pull away first.

30 and 40-something worked 4 days a week. My boss paid them on Friday. They got drunk on weekends, nursed a hangover on Monday’s, then dragged their sorry asses back to work on Tuesday.

The summer break next year, I went to work for the local school district doing the same thing. At the school district, I worked with 3 guys also. One was a friend and fellow college student. We worked our butts off. The other two guys complained and cajoled us to slow down and slack off. The experience wasn’t much different than the summer before. To me acting busy was harder than being busy, but in the end there are no great gigs in the lawn care and landscaping business. Did I mention the mosquitos were nasty?

Life is so much softer now, but we all have a responsibility to pull our own weight. We have a/c, cell phones, flat screen TVs and cold beer on every street corner. So what’s the big deal? Go to work. Get a job. If you can’t get the job of your dreams you can still go out and earn a living. If you want something more, go out and earn it. I know some retired guys who worked hard all their lives. Now that they aren’t working, they are willing to live (want) with less. It’s habit forming, but we can’t all be retired. So if you need something, go to work. Work can be habit forming, too. My experience wearing a hairnet left me wanting more.

Coming into this election, there’s an underlying current of ill will. Call it hate, dividing Americans. I have never before experienced such divisiveness before between conservatives and liberals, in my youthful 60 years of age.

Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous quote, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

This quote should serve as a warning to all of us, especially this President, Congress and influential leaders. We are at risk of a great divorce, with all the ingredients including hate, resentment and financial ruin. Worst is how it will affect the children, many who call themselves Occupy Wall Street (OWS) the citizens of this great nation. It’s always the children who get hurt the most.

Note from author on 11-27-2012: Now that the election is over I feel more strongly than ever this message should resonate with anyone who is concerned about the future of this country.

Filed under Occupy Wall Street, Rants, Small Business, startup Tagged with big government

Have You Hugged Your Building Custodian Today?

April 9, 2012 by Idea Capitalist Leave a comment

You cannot lead from behind!

Leadership begins with mutual respect. The leaders I respect the most lead by example. Politicians, pundits and the media can go around trying to divide people into haves and have-nots, but there’s really no divide between most of us.

Small business owners don’t have a problem hugging their building custodian. How about the lawn care person, the handy person, the painter, the delivery person; most of all the bug person, who you may feel at risk… to hug? Hug, hug, hug them, anyway. Many of the aforementioned live enriched, fulfilling lives with or without millions; and need not be classified otherwise. Many of these folks are small business owners, too! Like me.

I’m sure there’s a more PC way to describe some of your favorite “small business owners,” but here’s mine. They probably fall off ladders. They are probably mechanically deficient and they’re probably a danger to themselves and others, with a hammer. OK, that’s just me… but most small business owners have a great deal of respect for those who wield a mop or a nail gun.

You’ll find small business owners in and amongst your family, and amongst your friends. People you know and respect. I’ve also come to learn, most small business owners, including me, are generally opposed to big government. To them, big government prescribes life to be easy, convenient, comfortable and mindless. To me government is the voice saying, ”Eat your vegetables, go to school, do your homework, go to college, get a job, get married, have kids, retire, play golf, get cancer and die.” I already have parents, thank you. Small business owners know, even if you were to try to live such a mundane existence, government can’t save you. They know there’s no such thing as a mundane existence. There’s always going to be something that requires you to be extraordinary.

Government isn’t extraordinary and it doesn’t make money, you do. Government spends your money. Frankly government spends money you don’t have and you are personally on the hook to pay back that debt. You and your family, as citizens of the United States of America, now stand to own a piece of over $5 trillion dollars in debt in just the past 3-4 years alone. This is the new normal. Are you willing to double down on that much debt?

News flash! For many small business owners like me, life isn’t easy. Like most Americans who are willing, I have to earn every dime. Still no one can speak for those of you who were dealt from a rigged deck, who live a life of marked cards. Your life may include poverty, possibly abuse, neglect or worse. To escape this life you may need or have needed to be extraordinary. To escape you may need or have needed extraordinary luck. To escape you may need or have needed extraordinary help from other people, places including the institution of government and beyond. You may need private investment, support from charities and organizations supported by those who have been more fortunate. In this fashion, there are plenty of small business people, again like me, who support those in need. What small business owners don’t need is more big government, big union and big business getting in the way.

Without free market capitalism, small businesses can’t thrive or even survive. Many people disagree. They think more government is the answer. Where will the jobs come from? Government? Where will the tax revenues come from? Rich people? Hardly! All the institutions that are getting a pass include big government, big union and big business. So where do you turn? Most small business people know how hard it is to make money and to pay off debt. That’s what most small business people do. That’s leadership.

So why are politicians, pundits and the media so hell-bent on dividing this country into haves and have-nots? I say, it’s time to go dish out some hugs! Start with the folks that keep me off ladders and off my roof. Start with people who take away my hedge trimmer and my chain saw, too. That’s just a scary movie to me. You can start with a hug for me. If I am still in one piece, I’ll hug back.

Recently I ran across this open letter to Romney called The First Four Years Are The Hardest… that echoes much of the sentiment conveyed here… a great read…sorry you had to come this far to get to this

Filed under Conservative, entrepreneurs, leadership, Liberal Media, middle class, Musings, NFIB, Occupy Wall Street, Rants, Republican, Small Business, startup, stimulus, Talent, taxes Tagged with big government, capitalist, income tax, NFIB, Occupy Wall Street, republican, small business, small business owner

Alien Nation a.k.a., The Obamacare Nation

March 14, 2012 by Idea Capitalist 4 Comments

Alien, the movie was all about spreading spores and breeding aliens to prey on mankind, should the spores reach our planet. Obamacare and its spores are already here. Come 2014 the invasion will begin in earnest.

In Alien, Sigourney Weaver is the much larger than life heroine who thwarts the Alien invasion, at least until Aliens… Who can stop Obamacare? Maybe Pam Bondi, our larger than life Attorneys General for the State of Florida and the case she and attorneys generals in 26 other states have filed against Obamacare with the U.S. Supreme Court?

I’m just a small business owner. My concerns as a small business person and employer need to be amplified on a scale much bigger than fiction. We’ve already been invaded. The spores of Obamacare have already been planted. Officially, Obamacare is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The Senate passed it on December 24, 2009.

Beginning in 2014, when Obamacare explodes on to the scene, small business as we know it will cease to exist. In its place will be big government running a significant portion of small business, literally.

The heroine (or hero) in the real life movie Obamacare is the entrepreneur, the small business owner. The enemy is SHOP, the Small Business Health Options Plan. Big government is betting small business owners don’t have the time or the energy to sit through the movie, but as right-brained as many entrepreneurs can be, myself included, navigating SHOP is a must see.

The entrepreneurial spirit will be crushed by the most egregious of government actions since the payroll tax increase in April, 1983 which was cause and effect, the catalyst for U.S. manufacturers investing in jobs overseas. There will be nothing to prevent another government subsidy, Obamacare, to balloon out of control, as have Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid and chase more jobs overseas. To illustrate, below is a paragraph from HHS regarding Obamacare and the SHOP program.

From what I have read in the 644 page document, Final Rule State Healthcare Exchanges, from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), how the final rules address small business, capitalism and the entrepreneurial spirit and the heroine in this movie may die.

Let’s look at the subplot, lawyers and paperwork. It takes a lawyer to spawn a comment like this, “The final rule does not address all of the insurance exchange provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and additional rules will address those, according to the rule.”

Great ambiguity, but true! There’s plenty of room for HHS to make up more rules and regulations under the auspices of Obamacare.

Obamacare is a lawyer’s dream! In a country and a society as litigious as the USA and a law this broad, full of waivers (prejudices), exceptions and rules yet undefined; wasn’t instituting this law insanely àpropo?! In 2014 and beyond, the justice system will be brought to its knees. No. It has already been brought to its knees. It will be buried! So will many small businesses be buried, who can’t afford a good lawyer; who can’t afford the paperwork explosion.

HHS says one form. SHOP says only two forms, but if you read between the lines you know the paperwork will border on the ridiculous. Hello!, fellow small business owners…think annual Worker’s Comp. audits! Worker’s Comp. audits will be nothing compared to HHS audits sure to follow.

Here’s a snippet. Keep in mind this is one paragraph of a 664 page document to mandate a final rule on SHOP!

“Consistent with the statutory directive for HHS to provide a single, streamlined application form, we also proposed that the SHOP use only two application forms: one for qualified employers and one for qualified employees. We further proposed that for the purpose of determining eligibility in the SHOP, the SHOP may use the information attested to by the employer or employee on the application but must, at a minimum, verify that an individual attempting to enter the SHOP as an employee is listed on the qualified employer’s roster of employees to whom coverage is offered. We also proposed that the SHOP have processes to resolve occasions when the SHOP has a reason to doubt the information provided through the employer and employee applications. In addition, similar to the individual market Exchange standards, we proposed that the SHOP notify an employer or employee seeking coverage of the SHOP’s eligibility determination and the employer or employee’s right to appeal.

The final ruling on SHOP brings more questions than answers.

Bigger government, more regulation, new laws, especially the behemoth of all laws, Obamacare, create entirely new industries. Obamacare will undoubtedly create another cottage industry, like Dodd-Frank did for compliance and regulation, but Obamacare will create a tsunami of new so called experts spawned to aid small cash strapped businesses navigate Obamacare. Essentially they are government created jobs and all at taxpayers’ expense.

Many businesses are started by sole proprietors. Sole proprietors are excluded from SHOP. Sole proprietors pay the same tax rate as LLCs and Sub-S Corps. Don’t sole proprietors often spawn small businesses?

What if an employee can find a better plan by shopping the individual market and he or she wants to opt out of a company’s group plan?

Once invited to participate in SHOP can an employee still “SHOP” for their own individual insurance plan. If the employer is getting a less competitive price due to lack of participation, how does that affect the employer’s plan and administration?

Regardless of the “one bill for all” concept which most small businesses already enjoy, if you have 10, 20 or 50 employees, you may have to track different deductibles for each employee.

Will HHS and SHOP pit employers and employees against one another; against insurers?

Will SHOP leave one employer at a competitive disadvantage with other employers based on participation and economy of scale?

On the other hand, if insurance companies have to give individual employees the same price as employers, which according to SHOP is the rule, the price goes up for employers. Don’t the private insurers win?

What if you have employees in different geographical areas? What if they are eligible for different, more competitive SHOPs?

Certainly there will be more questions.

Today the private health insurance company is on the hook for the employer’s unpaid bills, not the government. With the government on the hook for unpaid health insurance premiums at least with SHOP, the winner is the insurer. The loser is the taxpayer.

The Aliens have landed, their spores have been planted and come 2014 there will be no stopping them. In the role of big government, Obamacare rules.

I can save you some time. All I’ve learned about the details of how the exchanges are going to work is summarized above. To learn more HHS or your state government will have to set up SHOP.

As for the spread of big government, here’s a glimpse of the future (another excerpt).

“SHOP may want to fulfill additional functions outside the scope of the proposed rule in order to offer employers a streamlined experience when managing their employee benefits. These commenters proposed that the SHOP sell other types of insurance, administer COBRA on behalf of participating employers, administer flexible spending accounts, assist small employers in setting up Section 125 plans, and oversee wellness programs.” “We will take these comments into account as we consider future guidance on the offering of other products on the Exchange.”

Stay tuned!

Filed under Conservative, Rants, Small Business Tagged with alan wiessner, Barack Obama, big government, paperless, small business, social security

Who isn’t afraid of failing?!

February 20, 2012 by Idea Capitalist 3 Comments

The Wallenda factor is just a normal fear of falling! Who isn’t afraid of falling?!

“Just in case you haven’t heard, the Wallenda factor refers to the fear of falling or failing. Shortly after Karl Wallenda fell to his death in 1978 (traversing a 75-foot high wire in downtown San Juan, Puerto Rico), his wife, also an aerialist, discussed that fateful San Juan walk, “perhaps his most dangerous.” She recalled: “All Karl thought about for three straight months prior to it was falling. It was the first time he’d ever thought about that, and it seemed to me that he put all his energies into not falling rather than walking the tightrope.”

Life is like traversing a tight rope.

If you think you need a safety net,

It won’t be long before you fall.

Live your life without a safety net,

Or be prepared to live your life

Closer to the ground.

Alan J Wiessner

Matt Ridley, The Rational Optimist says, “Pessimism is complacency.” I think generally speaking I would have to say at times I exercised pessimism in certain situations. I can relate it to looking in the mirror each morning and thinking, “I’m not getting any younger or thinner, for that matter.” I’m over that now!

To see the video - just click on the picture

Last year I spoke of challenges. This year, I believe anything’s possible! Last year I spoke of good fortunes, we were fortunate enough to have earned another year in business. I said I was proud of the intellectual property (IP) and talent we had. This year I am confident our talent pool here is second to none. Everyone has bought into The Rational Optimist theme, “Everybody is working for everybody else.” Last year I said opportunities present challenges.

We have faced those challenges. We have conquered many and we are prepared conquer the future. While politicians in Washington scrum over the economy and jobs, free market goes out and creates 100 mpg cars, even driverless cars. We need to tell our politicians…anything’s possible.This year we will focus again on making our products easier to use, easier to install and cloud ready. Inside Integra, we will continue to concentrate on developing and acquiring better tools to do our jobs in a more productive environment. Last year’s message was, “Attitude is everything.”

This year we will continue to encourage a positive attitude in the workplace, with our customers, partners and suppliers. Everybody is working for everybody else (click on the picture to the left for the video) because again…. anything’s possible. Finally, last year I predicted growth would be next our greatest challenge and we grew significantly. We remain well positioned to take advantage of those significant gains in 2012 and beyond.

: To see an awesome video – just click on the picture

I’ll leave you with a great video (click on the photo below) and when you feel that wave of pessimism coming on, remember, anything’s possible.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act but a habit.” — Aristotle

Filed under Celebrities, export, leadership, Musings, Rants, Small Business, startup, Talent Tagged with alan wiessner, cycling, export, identifi.net, integra business systems, linkedin, small business

The Real Middle Class is the “Middle Seat” on Southwest Airlines

December 4, 2011 by Idea Capitalist 6 Comments

The real middle class? Invisible. The mainstream media and the politicians can’t see US from where they’re sitting.

Yet, nothing the middle class does is less than “first class.”

They don’t care about labels or occupying anything unless it’s a celebration, like Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

They can’t afford the first class ticket. So they fly Southwest Airlines.

The real “middle class” is willing to stand in line for a bargain. They rarely complain. When it comes to flying, they’re just happy to have afforded a seat to a destination for which they are committed and it doesn’t much matter how they get there.

In the real world, Mr. President, there’s no time for “class warfare.” In this economy, if you do your job, the middle class can do their job. There’s no time for “camplaigning.”

I see the middle class on Facebook, but they much prefer face time. They are grandparents visiting their grandkids. They are students heading home with their laundry. They are guests to a wedding. They are the bereaved heading to a funeral. They are small business people trying to close the deal.

That would be me, my boarding pass was C4 on a full flight. Just so you know C4 on a Southwest flight is not a seat number, it a place marker in line. C4 means 123 passengers have boarded the flight before you and you’re playing musical chairs with anyone standing in front of you or behind. Those people already seated, they want nothing to do with you! Trust me!

If they are the mainstream media, the pundits, the celebrities, the sound bites and the politicians who want to define the rich and the middle class, they don’t fly Southwest. I think that can define them. They are elitists. I define an elitist as someone who thinks most everyone else is ignorant or stupid. Attention elitists! C4 on a Southwest flight is 9 times out of 10, a middle seat. Then again, if I have to explain C4 on a Southwest flight to an elitist, I guess that makes me one. So I guess I’m not qualified to run for office.

Middle class America cannot be defined or redefined by sound bites. The only chance their agenda gets any traction? It’s if the middle class isn’t looking out the window on our last flight, taking the 30,000 foot view. They’re too busy dealing with what’s in their lap. More likely? Elitist fly first class thinking they’re a pillow away from another Obama presidency. A luxury we cannot afford.

FYI – The only class warfare for me comes with a “Ding!” and it’s all about getting an aisle seat.

If you subscribe and email me, I’ll tell you the secret to flying first class on Southwest.

Express “yourself.” Leave your comments, share or spread the word click on the Stumble Upon button below. Subscribe or come back often to visit.

Filed under Celebrities, Conservative, leadership, Musings, Rants, Small Business, startup, stimulus, Talent, taxes Tagged with alan wiessner, Barack Obama, big government, buffet rule, Democracy, Facebook, small business, Social network, Tax credit, Tax credit; Buffet Rule; Warren Buffet, warren buffet

Technology Can Drive Us Out of This Fog

November 1, 2011 by Idea Capitalist 4 Comments

Driverless cars, don't worry there's a BMW and Audi, too.

“Driverless cars,” what better message to tell government to get out of the way!

“This fog” being the deficit. In fact we are in a fog and missing the “byte”when we as a country, look towards investing more in asphalt highways, in roads and rail and less towards technology, the information highway to invest in our future competitiveness in the global marketplace.

The future is technology and “smart or driverless cars” Yes, cars that drive themselves.

Admittedly they have to “learn the course.” Like on HWY 5 in LA bumper to bumper smart cars will drive at 80 mph during rush hour. Think about navigating your iPad or reading your Kindle while your smart car drives itself. Your commute can be cut in half because your car’s the ass who tailgate the car in front of you without getting flipped ”the bird” or into a “fender bender.” Who needs more infrastructure?

Currently we are chasing four economies in global competitiveness, including Number One, Switzerland. Number Two is Singapore? Number Three is Sweden and Number Four is Finland. We’re Number Five. Number Five!

Read my Blog post India Gets IT! Information Technology that is…. The message should be clear. Most ground breaking technology (IT) is spawned by small business. I know. I am the founder and CEO of an IT business who has spawned new products that include all the ingredients of a successful small business that can compete globally.

I consider myself a grinder, maybe a lone wolf. Prideful. A do-it-yourselfer. Is that the definition of an entrepreneur? It depends on who you ask. Is that the definition of a small business owner? More than likely the answer would be “yes.” The difference between an entrepreneur and a small business owner? None, until the entrepreneur, who is an idea capitalist who chooses outside angel or VC investors.

Everybody has heard of the IPO bubble in the early 2000′s where billions of investment dollars were squandered on ideas. I pride myself by coining the phrase, “An idea is only worth it’s execution.” The idea capitalist who decides to forego outside investors, the grinder, the small business person, is more likely to sustain upticks and downturns in the economy.

We have a 14B deficit. We have over 9% unemployment, We can argue how we might cut entitlements or raise taxes on the rich all day long. The bottom line is all we want is our cake and eat it too. So I’ll let the experts argue what we need to do to stimulate the economy, reduce the deficit and add jobs. Afterall they have all the answers, don’t they?

Unfortunately the answer is “no.” Instead of idea capitalists, we have intellectual genocide where MSNBC pundits who have never had an original idea in their lives, interview (bait) Herman Cain about his 9.9.9 proposal and dismiss it with the age old adage that assumes “poor people” spend more of their income? on consumer goods than rich people therefore a national sales tax is a burden on the poor. Since poor people have little or no income how does this equate? Herman Cain is an idea capitalist. He is a grinder. Given the opportunity, he will be successful in helping the US create jobs, lower the deficit and increase our global competitiveness.

The real answer is to increase small business competitiveness in a global economy. The Obama administration wants to spend billions more on infrastructure. All I can think of are traffic cones and hard hats standing in our way and in the way of the progress we are making in new technology. Technology that solves the infrastructure problems and creates jobs.

“It makes little sense for the United States to turn away highly educated immigrants who seek to come here. It makes equally little sense to train talented foreign students in our universities but then fail to integrate them into our economy. Nearly 300,000 foreign students are enrolled in advanced degrees programs here, but the great majority will return home. We are casting away the fruits of our own investment. As has long been our American tradition, we should encourage the world’s innovators, inventors, and pioneers to immigrate to the United States and we should encourage those we train to settle and create jobs here.” Romney for President (2011-09-01). Believe in America: Mitt Romney’s Plan for Jobs and Economic Growth

Visa Caps for Highly Skilled Workers

As president, Mitt Romney will also work to establish a policy that staples a green card to the diploma of every eligible student visa holder who graduates from one of our universities with an advanced degree in math, science, or engineering. These graduates are highly skilled, motivated, English-speaking, and integrated into their American communities. Permanent residency would offer them the certainty required to start businesses and drive American innovation. Romney for President (2011-09-01). Believe in America: Mitt Romney’s Plan for Jobs and Economic Growth.

: Mitt Romney, Idea Capitalist

Are jobs coming back to the US? Case in point. A big business goes overseas to China to make an integral component of a product going to market. The product can be produced at 50% of the cost to produce the part in the US. The product made overseas requires a delivery timeframe of 12 weeks as opposed to 4 weeks in the US. The part is produced and delivered but not according to spec. A US company, TJH Manufacturing, Zion, IL, with a stellar reputation is recruited to re-engineer and deliver the part in time for market. The big business with the overseas propensity ends up paying four times the originally anticipated product cost.

My vote is for a “driverless government,” but first we have to put Congress and the Administration through the course. Let’s start by teaching them the constitution.

Filed under Conservative, Go Green, Paperless, Rants, Republican, Small Business, startup, stimulus, Talent, taxes Tagged with alan wiessner, Barack Obama, big government, go green, Herman Cain, income tax, paperless, republican, small business, Tax credit; Buffet Rule; Warren Buffet

Old millionaires should pay more taxes!!!

August 23, 2011 by Idea Capitalist 10 Comments

You’re absolutely right Mr. Buffet!

Caution! This is what the government does to old money!

If you are an old millionaire and all you’re doing is making money, you should pay more taxes. Send your check here.

The problem is there are many up and coming millionaires that are making products, providing services and creating jobs. They should be paying less taxes than they do today. They should be investing their income in products, services and jobs.

On the other hand, there are many millionaires that aren’t making money. They’re making jobs.

With all due respect to a man, no, an institution for free enterprise Mr. Buffet, you have lost your way.

When I say old, I’m not disparaging your age. I’m only calling attention to the problem at hand. The government wastes our tax dollars. Point to one venture the government has undertaken that makes money with our tax dollars and I will stand corrected?

Let’s tax what you spend!

Take your money and run the other way! Invest it in free enterprise and all you will see is progress, more jobs and a healthier economy.

Your letter to the public calls for millionaires like yourself to pay more than twenty (20%) percent of your income, in taxes. No problem! If Congress and the President get behind the Fairtax, you’ll be able to put your money where it should be, taxed fairly…

Why don’t we see more politicians, the media and fair-minded people like you talking about Fairtax.org?

In fact, you should take Fairtax up with our President?

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Filed under Celebrities, Conservative, Fair Tax, Flat tax, income tax, leadership, Musings, Payroll Tax, Rants, Republican, Small Business, startup, stimulus, Talent, taxes Tagged with Barack Obama, buffet rule, Democracy, fairtax, flat tax, income tax, NFIB, payroll tax, payroll tax holiday, small business, Tax credit, warren buffet

Life is Large!

July 27, 2011 by Idea Capitalist 4 Comments

A Trifecta! Klondike Bluffs in the foreground, Arches National Park and the snow-capped La Sal Mountains in the background. Awesome photography by Glenn Smith

Life is large!… and so amazing!

Don’t let a few bumps in the road stop you from experiencing your potential.

You have an awesome future.

Don’t waste time on worry, anger or reproach.

Life’s too short.

The “what if’s?” can be endless.

The “why not’s” can be endless too.

Choose one and you will be lost in life.

Choose the other and you will find endless possibilities.

So “why not?”

Filed under Musings, Rants Tagged with alan wiessner, arches natioanl park, cycling, friends, klondike bluffs, la sal mountains, moab, mountain biking

How fortunate am I?

July 20, 2011 by Idea Capitalist Leave a comment

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around, does it make a sound?

I have been bowed over in anguish over a job lost; I have placed my hands over my face and head, elbows to my knees gasping for breath; I have barricaded myself behind closed doors.

So, I have often wondered, does a job lost make a sound?

If you have asked our government, technically the answer to both questions is , “No.”

I would have to agree. Neither seen nor heard, you’re on your own.

I have experienced both, the latter being much more traumatic, although both are deeply disturbing, I would have to say the tree was less personal and the lesser of two evils.

Symbolic in a fashion, like our government, the tree had been leaning. It’s weight no longer sustainable, it roots no longer able to bear its growth.

I was deeply affected by the sight of the fallen tree in its magnitude. It’s beauty and majesty held me in awe. I often crossed it’s path, never imagining it’s demise.

Falling across a sidewalk, in a city park, the tree was swept away in a day; a series of sawing, grinding and chipping away. At times the noise was deafening. And then it was gone.

I, too, had moved on. Picked myself back up. Started a new venture. Today I am rooted strongly, my business supported by faith, family and my business. Supported by partners, fellow employees, suppliers and customers.

How fortunate for me, I am not a tree.

Filed under Conservative, Fair Tax, Flat tax, Go Green, income tax, leadership, Musings, Payroll Tax, Rants, Republican, Small Business, stimulus, Talent, taxes Tagged with Christian, Christianity, go green, paperless, payroll tax holiday, Religion and Spirituality, sleepless, small business

Hospitals Are For Sick People!

July 14, 2011 by Idea Capitalist 8 Comments

We are a small business in the “high tech” business. Our goal is “advancing the paperless office.” It’s a shame our company and so many companies like ours simply cannot afford to do business with the government.

Doing business with the government is a paperwork and regulatory nightmare. We don’t have the time, the resources, a team of consultants to guide us or a team of lawyers to protect us, God forbid we forgot to dot an “i” or cross a “t”.

“That is why The Affordable Care Act is destined to fail. It’s unintelligible. Just ask anyone who hasn’t read it.”

As a software development company which replaces paper with electronic records, we believe technology can and will solve many of the cost containment problems with healthcare.

The problem is government needs to get out of the way. Forget about subsidizing doctors with taxpayer dollars for buying government mandated and precertified technology called HITECH. The problem is there’s too great a cost and too much red tape for a small business to get into the game.

Worse, doctors are going to pay too much money from the select few companies that are willing to run the government gauntlet to become certified under Obamacare.

Let the free market work. My company has 32 employees. Healthcare costs are a growing concern for our small business. We pay the employee’s healthcare in full which has risen on the average more than 10% per year per employee over the past several years. In the process we are seeing benefits shrink and costs increase for both employer and employee.

This is a partnership between employer and employee. Employers want to provide a benefit in the form of compensation, in particular with a pre-tax benefit to the employee. Employees want quality affordable healthcare for their families. We ask the employees to participate in the decision making process. We collaborate to find the best available plan for the money.

One of my employees with a spouse and 5 kids says, “I might as well just hand my paycheck back over to you to pay for my family’s healthcare.”

As an employer I feel terrible about this type of sentiment, but I’m paying for the employee’s healthcare, plus the cost to shop and administer the plan. There’s nothing in it for me but to try to remain competitive in the salary and benefits area with other employers.

The 2011 National Physicians Survey, conducted by Thomson Reuters/HCPlexus and polling almost 3,000 American doctors, shows that while Obamacare would raise spending, premiums, overall U.S. health costs, and debt, it wouldn’t raise the quality of American health care. Rather, by a margin of well over 3 to 1, doctors expect the quality of American health care to decline over the next five years, in the wake of Obamacare’s passage: Only 18 percent of doctors expect the quality of health care to “improve,” while a whopping 65 percent expect it to “deteriorate.”

Recall that Gallup recently announced that only 13 percent of Americans support ObamaCare as is. I’m not blaming this all on the President, but you have to walk the walk to talk the talk. The President doesn’t do either.

Health insurance cost is a moving target for small business. In 2010 we paid full medical benefits for 27 FTEs. Our cost averaged $4,900 per employee per year. This is up only 5% over 2009 due to changing providers from Blue Cross to Humana, changing plans from a PPO to an HMO, higher deductibles and over 1/2 of the FTEs selecting H.S.A.s due to the cost to their families. Since there is really no competition between providers, Blue Cross, Humana and United Healthcare we have been switching from one to the next every 2-3 years based on the plans available and the economics. In 2011 the cost will has increased to $5,030 per employee until August when we will again negotiate a new and undoubtedly less desirable coverage. Keep in mind the impact is felt not only by the employer, but by the employee with spouse and children as well.

The answer to rising prices and declining benefits is to increase competition in the health insurance market. Why do we need a new law to create healthcare exchanges? Why can’t we lift existing regulations to allow competition across state lines? Encourage, not put limits on Health Savings Accounts H.S.A.’s as the new Affordable Care Act does. I pay for my employee’s health and dental benefits up to the monthly H.S.A premium. If they select a more expensive plan they pay the difference. I have physicians who have discounted procedures 25% because they know I’m paying for their services out of my own pocket (at least until I reach the out of pocket maximum). The emphasis at our company is to be healthy. We have our own gym. We have a cycling team for the formed to fight MS. If an individual is making decisions on their own behalf with regard to their health and their health care costs, the cost of healthcare will truly become more affordable.

The bottom line is we simply cannot afford to get sick.

Where common sense fails. disingenuous, dishonest, demagoguery prevails.

From PoliticalCalculations.com: Combined, the Top Ten recipients of this corporate welfare took 45.6% of the total $1,789,449,634 taxpayer dollars that were doled out, with the United Auto Workers taking the largest chunk by a wide margin, with $206,798,086, or 11.6% of all the taxpayer money that was allocated for the purpose.

Surprisingly, two telecommunication giants AT&T and Verizon took the second and third positions, with 7.8% and 5.1% of the total take respectively.

After that, three state agencies occupied the fourth, fifth and sixth largest positions—the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, the Georgia Department of Community Health and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), the latter frequently in the news recently for corruption scandals and its massively underfunded pension liabilities.

The eighth and ninth ranks are taken up by the State of New York and the Pension Accounting Services Department within the State of New Jersey’s Treasury Department. Corporate basket case General Electric, which has come to rely greatly upon government mandates, special protections, subsidies and bailouts for its revenue, rounds out the Top Ten with an even 2.0% of the total handout.

The remaining 1,305 entities collected the remaining 54.4% of the money paid out by the government to pay for the health benefits of people who chose to retire from their professions early, with the Minnesota Cement Masons taking the least of all the recipients, at 60 dollars. Source: politicalcalcualtions.com

Why do politicians, the president the mainstream media and a plethora of celebs continue to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear? Not so at the Washington Times…

“The president’s own secretary of health and human services, Kathleen Sebelius, has admitted a major section of the Obamacare law is “totally unsustainable.”

“The now-familiar monthly trickling down of new waivers is, at best, a tacit admission that Obamacare is a failure. So far, seven entire states and 1,372 businesses, unions and other institutions have received waivers from the law. The list includes the administration’s friends and allies and, of course, those who have the best lobbyists.”

“More than 50 percent of the Obamacare waiver beneficiaries are union members, which is striking because union members
account for less than 12 percent of the American work force.”

“But the political payoffs don’t stop there. The Obama administration didn’t forget its closest friends in the latest round of waivers. Although there are 435 congressional districts across America, nearly 20 percent of the new waivers, amazingly, found their way to a single district – Mrs. Pelosi‘s. As for Mr. Reid, well, the entire state of Nevada found an early waiver in its Christmas stocking.”

The answer is they have no real stake in the game. Politicians and the President want to be re-elected. Their own constituents get a pass. They don’t pay for their own healthcare. The mainstream media and celebrities and their Cadillac health insurance plans can afford to pay more.

The small businesses and their employees are left to deal with big government mandates already proven to unpalatable to 3.1 million individuals exempted from the plan, of which 1.55 million are in union plans. Those who received waivers and those who pay no taxes are going to continue to vote in favor Obama, Pelosi and Reid. They have held the keys to the kingdom and skyrocketing debt too long.

If you are a taxpayer, do something. Lean hard on federal, state and local politicians to come up with a better answer to the high cost of healthcare than the Affordable Care Act.

Ask your physician to cut you a break on your healthcare costs. Negotiate with every insurer who offers healthcare in your state. Look for plans which cover individuals and their families outside your employer’s plan(s). Start moving.

Do everything you can to stay healthy. Hospitals are for sick people.

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Filed under Compliance, Conservative, Fair Tax, Flat tax, income tax, leadership, Legality, Musings, Paperless, Payroll Tax, Rants, Republican, Small Business, startup, stimulus, taxes Tagged with Barack Obama, Democracy, small business, Tax credit

Paint yourself with abandon!

June 24, 2011 by Idea Capitalist 2 Comments

Like an artist’s stroke of the brush, you are a Rembrandt or a Van Gogh.

You will never be a copy. You will never be a failure. You will always be a work of art, an interpretation.

How many times in your life have you said to yourself and nobody else, “I can’t do this anymore?” If you’re still breathing you have asked yourself the question many times.

How many times have you “answered the bell” sucked it up and did what you thought you couldn’t do?

The answer defines you.

It matters little if you can’t do something you are physically incapable, totally unprepared, poorly trained or simply uneducated to do. What matters is when there is that defining moment. You can do it. You’re in the moment. You have summoned all your strength, including mind and spirit. And you succeed. That’s what defines you.

Some might view you as a success. Others may view you as a failure. What’s vital is how you view yourself? You will never be a copy. You will never be a failure. You will always be an interpretation. You decide.

To illustrate I have included a poem I wrote for my dad who has recently passed away, a victim of Alzheimer’s.

If I Was An Artist

Father, patriarch, dad

And if I could paint

Mature, senior citizen , old man,

I would paint the portrait of a man

Provider, benefactor, success

Each word to describe him

Contrary, obstinate, cussed

Would be a different stroke from my brush

Non-conformist, contestant, maverick

Each phrase a different shade

Creative, inventive, colorful

From the palette of his life.

Environmentalist, naturalist, crusader

I would present him his portrait

Integrity, honesty, candid

With pride, his life a work of art.

You too are an artist. Paint yourself with abandon!

Filed under Cheese, Event, Musings, Rants, Talent Tagged with alan wiessner, alzheimers, cycling, Religion and Spirituality, small business

Employee Benefits Statement

May 12, 2011 by Idea Capitalist Leave a comment

Benefits Statement

We leave statutory benefits out of the equation, so as not to over inflate the benefits, but feel free to add them or change the spreadsheet in any fashion you wish. In our business, which is software development and technology we compete in a hi-tech salary + benefits world. We have a profit sharing plan.

We also have a Work From Home Wednesdays program for employees who commute over 30 minutes from home (We dictate only Wednesday’s so they don’t try to make a long weekend out of it).

We even have a company gym in our Admin Building and Meeting Center.

If you would like a copy, subscribe and leave me a comment below and I will send you a sample Excel spreadsheet.

Filed under income tax, leadership, Payroll Tax, Small Business, startup, Talent, taxes Tagged with employee benefit, small business

Twitter me free! Lead with words!

February 26, 2011 by Idea Capitalist Leave a comment

Are Twitter and Facebook freedom personified!?

Without a doubt face time is far more effective, whenever possible, in personal relationships but let’s face it, not effective when your dodging bullets (hence the double entendre on lead) even when your message is compelling and needs to go viral.

No measure, including national media in any form, is more effective than a simple post or tweet.

Has social media done what shock and awe, subterfuge and sanctions cannot do? Free the oppressed?

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting. – Charles Bukowski

You think!? I think voting means less lead. Fewer bomb makers. I like a lottery when it comes to choosing my lawmakers, not a noose.

As for religious freedom? I’m still debating this topic with my Mom.

Twitter and Facebook are ubiquitous. Are they the true freedom fighters, persona non grata, going to topple mid-eastern dictators?

Lead with words!

A double entendre that would be rendered empty without the help of real life martyrs, real life freedom fighters. Brave, passionate people. Let’s do what we can to help them “live” not “die” for freedom. Let’s show our support and tweet and Facebook (post) a message now to all your fans and friends, “Live free!” to get the message out to our Mid-eastern and African neighbors who live under oppressive dictators.

Here at home, let’s put a face on freedom. Tweet and Facebook our message.

Live Free, Not Die!

Filed under Musings, Rants Tagged with alan wiessner, Democracy, Facebook, Middle East, Social network, Twitter

Marco Rubio for President – Just Sayin’

October 30, 2010 by Idea Capitalist Leave a comment

Marco Rubio for President! What’s not to like? A guy who comes from a working class family. He knows the meaning of “have not” and earning everything he has achieved. Marco Rubio is living the “American Dream” and need not apologize for it.

Several small business owners had the opportunity to meet Marco Rubio and we were not disappointed. The National Federation Independent Business (NFIB) invited us to the Tampa Bay Brewing Company who hosted the announcement by NFIB Florida of their endorsement of Mr. Rubio for the US Senate.

Mr. Rubio spent several hours with a group of local Tampa Bay area small business owners and NFIB members. Several small businesses were fortunate to spend time with him introducing their companies and the challenges they face in today’s economy.

Mr. Rubio also spent time in a sit down discussion with us where I was able to express my favorite political topic, a “payroll tax holiday.”

Marco Rubio has stayed on message throughout a bitterly contested 2010 race for the US Senate seat versus Charlie Crist (Independent) and Kendrick Meeks (Democrat). The mud-slinging between candidates has been ad nauseam, but I have to say, for the most part, candidate Rubio has stayed above the fray. He remains on message, which my interpretation is, “less government, repeal Obamacare, keep the Bush tax cuts, vote against Cap and Trade and freeze government spending.”

No doubt we are talking about the next US Senator to represent. Florida. Now Mr. Rubio, how about that payroll tax holiday for small businesses and their employees?

Filed under Celebrities, Cheese, Conservative, Event, Fair Tax, Flat tax, George Bush, income tax, leadership, Liberal Media, mainstream media, Marco Rubio, middle class, Middle East, MSM, Musings, NFIB, Payroll Tax, Politicians, Rants, Republican, Small Business, startup, stimulus, Talent, taxes Tagged with fairtax, income tax, marco rubio, NFIB, payroll tax, payroll tax holiday, republican, small business, Tax credit

In Life Too Often, It’s the Tail Waggin’ the Dog

May 17, 2013 by Idea Capitalist Leave a comment

Cody as a puppy with my wife Terri

I love the beat of Cody’s tail wagging against the floor, against the door, against the wall, against the bed he is lying on. I’m not sure whether it will be Cody’s heart that gives out before his tail stops wagging.

Cody’s my 10 year old chocolate lab. We’re kinda attached at the hips. He goes to work with me every day. He goes to work most days, I am out of town on business. I now have a ramp he uses to load up into the back of my SUV. It is a ceremony. He’s not fan of the trip up. I’ve employed what is best to describe as a soft suitcase I wrap him in, to coax him up the ramp. He’s frantic, so there’s always a treat waiting for him. Upon arrival, and his descent, he reminds me of an arriving dignitary, including the obligatory pause for photo ops, before his parade trip down the ramp.

Cody knows when it’s time to go to work. He knows when it is time for his 10 and 4 o’clock walks. He knows he goes to North Park in the AM and he knows he tours the office park in the afternoon.

Most important he knows when it is time to go home. Dinner!

If you ask him to change his routine, you meet with the stubbornness of a 100+ lb. dog, who knows who’s in charge.

He knows when the UPS truck arrives. He knows the drivers. He knows whether to expect a biscuit or a good rub. The drivers know him, too. After all, “What can brown do for you?”

You might say Cody has it made. Even before you see his beds at home or the leather sofa he spends an increasing amount of time on at the office, but there’s a point to all this dribble. So bear with me.

Cody’s hips are giving in to father time, so he’s getting laser to strengthen his shoulders and flanks. If it works for him, I’m next in line.

Cody now goes to bed before Terri and I do. Both of us cracked a smile and laughed the first time he left us to head for bed. Now we know Cody has more common sense than we do.

A former neighboring business owner had a 10 year old white lab named Jack. Like Cody, he came to work with his owners each day. Jack died suddenly. We were commiserating when Jack’s owner said to me, “give Cody a good back scratch for Jack.”

When I scramble to meet a deadline, decry the political theatre, grouse over a lost order or worry about where the next dollar is coming from, all I have to do is look to my friend. He’s most often at my feet.

I am reminded. I have so much to live for, why not make things right in this messed up world? The solution?

Everyone should get a good tummy rub and a nice back scratch every day. Cody does.

Filed under Depression, entrepreneurs, Musings, Rants Tagged with alan wiessner, best friend, best friends, Religion and Spirituality, retirement, small business

Angry Americans

April 27, 2013 by Idea Capitalist Leave a comment

Our liberal press a.k.a. MSM are more than willing to report a story when an angry American (of course they are white extremists) push or shove an innocent Muslim in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings. I agree its wrong and two wrongs don’t make a right, but ignorance and prejudice are wrong, too. The media bias is Beyond the Pale.

Best way to describe how the MSM tries to lead us around by the nose. The article, Why Muslims Kill by Daniel Greenwood, gets to the root cause as to why terrorists acts such as 9-11 and the Boston Marathon bombing are not going away. Excerpt: “The better news outlets answer with convenient terms like “radicalization” or “self-radicalization” and much of the public, primed to react to meaningless political jargon as if it had meaning, will think that they understand. A radical, they know, is a bad person, except for a brief period when surfers and ninja turtles could use it and still be good people. They don’t quite know why that is, but they also don’t know why high debt is good for the economy or why Islam is a religion of peace.”

I think any attacks by American citizens is deplorable but let’s not lose sight what is happening to Christians worldwide being attacked, murdered and maimed by Muslim extremists.

Follow this link —> Islamic Terror Attacks on Christians

The point is, where is the indignation on the part of Americans, the MSM, when countless hundreds of Christians are killed and thousands are injured every year at the hands of Islamic extremists. You have to dig to find a news story.

Angry Americans? Christians don’t teach our children to hate. Islamists do. Follow this link —>

Children raised to hate America

Children of Islam

Filed under Conservative, mainstream media, Middle East, MSM, Politicians, Rants Tagged with big government, Boston bombing, Christianity, Islamic Terrorists, Middle East

One Nation Under God, Heartfelt Messages for Bostonians

April 15, 2013 by Idea Capitalist Leave a comment

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Our prayers go out to and how you can help the victims of the Boston Marathon explosions, a senseless terrorist act. Our thanks to the incredible bravery and life-saving response of local, county, and state first responders.

I’d love to post more heartfelt messages here in my gallery. Send me your favorites via Twitter @ideacapitalit thanks!

Filed under Small Business Tagged with Barack Obama, Boston Marathon, Middle East, Patriotism, Religion and Spirituality

← Older posts

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More broken promises from the Obama Administration. Surprised?!

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The ideacapitalist interviews… the ideacapitalist, family guy, entrepreneur and small business owner.

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Tough Love vs. Dependency

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Obamacare is government run healthcare in “Exchange” for your freedom.

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Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Holidays! And be good for goodness sake!

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Previously reported on Benghazi here

247 DAYS and Counting! Mainstream Media (MSM), you have the Sandystorm PhotoOp. Now where is the PhotoOp from the Situation Room during the 7 hour Sh!tstorm called Benghazi? Four brave Americans died!!! on 9/11!!!

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The Benghazi fait accompli – It’s NOW been 247 Days!

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The best advice I have read comes from a Twitter contributor Wayne Dupree.

Another suggestion is to do the math and deal with the facts.

Finally, once your discussion or argument’s ended, take some time to reflect and explore the other person’s point of view.

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Alien, the movie was all about spreading spores and breeding aliens to prey on mankind, should the spores reach our planet. Obamacare and its spores are already here. Come 2014 the invasion will begin in earnest.

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The Wallenda factor is just a normal fear of falling! Who isn’t afraid of falling?!

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The real middle class? Invisible. The mainstream media and the politicians can’t see US from where they’re sitting.

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“Driverless cars,” what better message to tell government to get out of the way!

Visa Caps for Highly Skilled Workers

My vote is for a “driverless government,” but first we have to put Congress and the Administration through the course. Let’s start by teaching them the constitution.

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You’re absolutely right Mr. Buffet!