Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Gov. Perry, Rep. Bachmann, etc. Have It All Wrong!

Conservative Republicans, especially members of the Tea Party, all seem to be parroting the same line about the economy, and that is that small business owners are staying on the sidelines and aren't hiring because of all the government regulations and the impact of what they like to refer to as "Obamacare."

Ok, let me tell you something - I think these folks are full of crap, don't know what they are talking about and most of them haven't the faintest idea about how to run and prosper in a small business. When they speak, they are catering to the lowest common denominator of the electorate and unfortunately they have found a large number of listeners.

I have spent more than 30 years conducting research, publishing financial studies and providing individualized consulting services for small businesses - specifically printing firms ranging in size from $400,000 to more than $5 million in annual sales.

I have published more than 30 statistical studies in this industry dealing with profitability, pricing, wages & benefits, etc., etc. You name it, and I've probably published it!

I know the big players and the little guys in this industry and I know them by name. I know the firms that fall in the top quartile in terms of profitability and those at the bottom.

And you know what? I have never met nor confronted a print shop owner who was holding off making a major decisions because of "Obamacare." I also have never heard a print shop owner blame government regulations for the reasons he is having trouble surviving.

I don't know of a single owner who could look me straight in the face and blame either Obamacare or government regulations as a major cause for the problems they are currently facing! And yet, to hear politicians like Perry and Bachmann talk, these are the very reasons for our current economic crisis! What a bunch of crap!

I know firms that continue to grow and prosper in this current economy, and they don't give a rat's ass about future healthcare regulations and what the govenment might do next month or six months from now. Why? Because they know in the scheme of things they can't control the outcome so they don't let it interfere with what they can do and that is manage their businesses the best they can. They leave all the other stuff up to the politicians.

If your experiences are truly different that what I have noted please contact me. I would love to hear your story.

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1 Comments:

Blogger Shirley said...

While I would agree that most small business owners are not sitting around biting their nails and wondering how "obamacare" will impact their business, I will say that both the healthcare law and financial reform law passed last year have affected us.

Both our health insurance and payroll processing companies now have new gov't required forms that we have to complete and sign each quarter (even though mostly comprised of data our vendors ALREADY have on hand, they are not allowed by law to pre-fill the forms, they MUST be completely completed by us with originals mailed back). In addition, our franchise has had to implement new rules - some via training of employees and some via software code. All this has translated into time & $$ for our very small business.

We have seen price increases by nearly every one of our vendors, as well. I doubt their increases are directly related to these specific laws, but if they are in a situation like us, surely they have some measurable role.

No, we are not sitting on the sidelines, like any good small business owner, we are still in the 'fight' as you say... looking for new revenue streams and looking for ways to decrease our expenses so we don't have to raise prices too much on our customers and still make a living. But just because we know we can't do anything about these regs coming at us, don't mean we have to smile and say "Thank You Sir, May I Have Another?"

I would say that in our case - and we are very small, barely on your radar at just under $400K - we have held off hiring due to a number of regulations, not just the 2 new ones mentioned above... and uncertainty in the economy in general.

August 17, 2011 at 2:16 PM  

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