Outside Voices: Small Business

No 'Anti-Obama Small-Business Bailout,' Please

July 9, 2009 RSS Feed Print

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Tim Berry

I've been getting surprisingly obnoxious unsolicited E-mails from somebody calling himself "America's business coach." He's calling an annoying offer of a free E-book his anti-Obama small-business bailout.

By the way, he's not who you might think. He's not Brian Tracy, or Barry Elms, or Thomas Winninger, or Lisa Bilal, or Maria Masala. His name doesn't turn up in the first few pages of any major Web search. I checked.

Suggestion: If you don't show up in the top 25 results for searching "America's business coach" in either Google, Yahoo, or MSN, don't send out press releases calling yourself that.

Second suggestion: Don't send out press releases saying you are going to give away a million copies of your book. Do it first, then brag about it. (Hint: Can you find even a thousand people who want it?)

Third suggestion: Stop with the bailout rhetoric, knocking President Obama for giving money to big companies and not to small business. It's just demagogy. The president doesn't give away money; Congress does. And the mechanics of government make it necessary to spend money to prevent some large company disasters, and they make it almost impossible to directly stimulate small business, except through slow movements related to loans and incentives and federal contracting and taxes and healthcare requirements and such, all of which are more about Congress than about presidents.

I own a small business. We have 45 employees and no outside investors. We've been in business for 22 years. I don't want the government to bail us out, but I do want the government to protect the economy, as best it can, from some dire economic conditions.

And I have no interest in this guy's self-proclaimed title, his book, his bailout, or his politics, either.

Tim Berry is president and founder of Palo Alto Software, founder of bplans.com, and a co-founder of Borland International. He teaches starting a business at the University of Oregon. He is author of books and software including Business Plan Pro, published by Palo Alto Software, and The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan, published by Entrepreneur Press. He has a Stanford M.B.A. degree and degrees with honors from the University of Oregon and the University of Notre Dame. He blogs at Planning Startup Stories and Up and Running.

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This weblog is wonderful. There’s always all of the ideal info in the ideas of my fingers. Thanks and keep up the excellent work!

ангары быстровозводимые of AL 12:01PM September 28, 2011

Can you please help that how you apply for the small bussiness is there is any organization which offer this & i want to what is the procedure of geting form to get the small bussiness.
As u inspire me lot & hope you will also help me to achive the goal

Nandita Saha of NJ 2:49AM July 21, 2009

During past 10-15 years of "global economic" reform and "free trade" our Feds and financial clans have been successfully working on conversion of our system into monopolistic body with socialistic engine. They wanted to give birth to an ugly mutant and they did it. I call the new system Mastrubism, or you give it your name. It's partly socialism due to high spending on people at the bottom and free huge money for selected by government leading giants/companies in their industries. This reminds me Soviet Union/USSR a lot. We used to have full government control of all industries starting with manufacturing, then distribution to warehouses and ending with large government controlled chains of small and large stores/retailers. That basically what's going on now slowly but surely here in USA. Government taking over large giants by borrowing them fresh printed money which costs government almost nothing. This is hidden type of step-by-step privatization of these formerly privately own chains. This is why government was demolishing our normal capitalistic economy starting from 1970 by almost uncontrolled import of import cars and other products and making local manufacturers go out of business. It started with manufacturers, then professionals such as programmers and engineers in 2000 and up. Then the most deadly hit was introducing and empowering by credits and patronage "small business killer chains" like Walmart, Kmart, HomeDepot, Lowe's, Staples, Target, BestBuy, Sears, Marshals, Liquidator, Ikea, etc. They all say to us "Save More, Live Better" or "More Saving, More Doing". Oh yes! However what they not telling us, that we eventually will close most of our small businesses operated by us, our family members, friends, neighbors, etc. Who will benefit from buying from these stores? Mostly people in need who are on government assistance, people with stable jobs with stable companies, government employees, and similar individuals. If you have more money then you can spend per month you will survive without going to this kind of large stores which are basically working for government now. The goal here is to socialize the retail industry by slowly and surely killing small independent retailers with "price beating"/ "wholesale to public" concepts and tools. Who is wining here? Nobody, but government and its direct investors/clans. What it does to our Capitalism and USA market? It kills it. The first rule of Capitalism is to protect small businesses and local manufacturers from monopolists in their industries. There are has to be no blood sucking giants, if we want to preserve healthy capitalism and its creative spirit. Government was created to protect small businesses from giant monopolies and uncontrolled imports. It failed to do so and sold its soul to clans. Every smart and talented small business owner knows that it's impossible to fight a wholesale to public giant, and most of businesses give up to fight or just not being given new births anymore.

AC of NY 4:41AM July 19, 2009