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Charles M Cooper

Small Business Week: SBA Phoenix Award Winners

Every year the Small Business Administration issues special awards to outstanding small businesses and entrepreneurs. This year, the agency honored outstanding disaster recovery efforts with their coveted Phoenix Award.

Tags: small business, sba, phoenix award

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Posted: 5/20/2009 | Comments (0)

Charles M Cooper

Voting With Your Feet: Entrepreneur Quits New York

Tom Golisano, founder and board chairman of Paychex, Inc., is pulling up stakes, leaving New York and heading to Florida. Why? Taxes. Golisano, one of the wealthy job-creators whose taxes support the State of New York, is withdrawing that support and voting with his feet. Somehow, it is hard to imagine that he is heading out alone.

Tags: small business, entrepreneurs, taxes, regulations, wealth flight

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Posted: 5/20/2009 | Comments (0)

Charles M Cooper

Credit Card Overhaul Passes Senate

The US Senate has passed sweeping credit card legislation aimed at reining in an industry that most Americans love to hate. The question is, however, what will the industry do in response?

Tags: small business, credit cards, recession, senate

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Posted: 5/19/2009 | Comments (2)

Charles M Cooper

Pulling into Their Shell: Advanta Shuts Down New Credit Purchases

Advanta, the small business credit card company, is going to extremes to protect itself during these economic hard times. If you have one of their cards, you won’t be able to use it by mid-June. What does that mean for you and is this a harbinger of things to come?

Tags: small business, advanta, credit cards, recession

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Posted: 5/18/2009 | Comments (0)

Charles M Cooper

Obesity in the Workplace Becoming an Issue

When it comes to workers’ comp, obesity has always been a kind of taboo subject, but that is changing and both employers and underwriters are starting to take a close look at the costs associated with obesity.

Tags: small business, workers’ comp, health insurance, obesity

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Posted: 5/18/2009 | Comments (1)

Charles M Cooper

Terminations: Make Sure You’re Right, and then Go Ahead

When it comes to firing an employee, it’s a bit easier if that employee did something wrong. The tough part is, you better be able to prove your allegations so they stand up in court.

Tags: small business, employment, termination, accusations, defamation

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Posted: 5/15/2009 | Comments (1)

Charles M Cooper

Healthcare Reform: New Taxes vs. a New Direction

The question of healthcare reform is a hot one these days, and the administration’s solution to it—taxes on all sorts of things including employer-paid benefits and soda pop—seems to be the odds-on favorite to win. Still, is sinking even more money, trillions of dollars, into healthcare really the only option? Perhaps it is really a matter of priorities instead.

Tags: small business, healthcare, health insurance, healthcare reform, taxes

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Posted: 5/14/2009 | Comments (0)

Charles M Cooper

ABC On Your Side: The Facts about FACTA

The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act requires credit card receipts print only truncated portions of the credit card number used for the transaction. Those out of compliance face fines and civil lawsuits, which is the problem. The law has turned into a gold mine for trial lawyers who bring suit against small businesses they find in violation. This abuse must be stopped and ABC is stepping up to stop it.

Tags: small business, facta, fair and accurate credit transactions act, fcra, fair credit reporting act, abusive lawsuits, litigation

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Posted: 5/13/2009 | Comments (0)

Charles M Cooper

Will Unionizing Your Business Help Rebuild the Middle Class?

Vice-President Joe Biden made an interesting comment. He declared that union growth is the way to rebuild America’s middle class. Is that true?

Tags: small business, unions, efca, employee free choice act, card-check

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Posted: 5/12/2009 | Comments (0)

Charles M Cooper

Should You Encourage Your Employees to Connect Online?

There is a growing tendency within companies for employees to connect with each other online in social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and such. Is this, however, all its cracked-up to be, or are there problems lurking in the cyber-shadows?

Tags: small business, social media, web 2.0, employee relations, online relationships

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Posted: 5/11/2009 | Comments (0)

Kim Fenolio

Small Biz Tip: Tracking and Testing Your Advertising Results

Small Business tips about tracking the results of your advertising, it’s absolutely fundamental to your success.

Tags: small business, tips, tracking, results, advertising, marketing

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Posted: 5/8/2009 | Comments (0)

Charles M Cooper

After the Bailout: GM to Increase Foreign Production

Now here is a real “rock and a hard place” quandary for the President and his Car Czar: GM plans to send more manufacturing jobs overseas once they reorganize. The rock is that if the jobs remain here, GM’s labor costs would rise, harming its ability to compete; the hard place is the utter outrage that would ensue if the automaker, after receiving billions of taxpayer dollars, is allowed to send the jobs out of the country.

Tags: american jobs, foreign jobs, gm, obama

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Posted: 5/8/2009 | Comments (0)

Kim Fenolio

Small Biz Tip: Yellow Page Advertising

The Small Business tips today will cover the elements you need to know in order to make a Yellow Page advertisement work.

Tags: small business, tips, yellow pages, advertisements, yellow page

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Posted: 5/7/2009 | Comments (0)

Charles M Cooper

The Other Side of the Chrysler Hedge Fund Fight

The President’s sharp words against those investment companies—he called them ‘speculators’—who refused his deal regarding the Chrysler bankruptcy, have been aired far and wide. Now, you should get the other side of the argument and decide for yourself who is right. In an open letter to the nation, Clifford S. Asness, the Managing and Founding Principal at AQR Capital Management, LLC, answers the President.

Tags: chrysler, bankruptcy, hedge funds, investment, obama, clifford s. asness, aqr capital management

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Posted: 5/7/2009 | Comments (0)

Kim Fenolio