I too wish the election had gone another direction nationally and locally...

Anyway, Romney couldn't even win his home state! How did that happen? Not a single county went his way!

Not really sure what's going to happen, other than I'm still going to have to work so other's don't have to....

Oh well, there is still hope for December 21st!! ha, ha!!

Mitch

 

I knew Romney had no chance in Mass, but I thought Ryan could help him win Wisconsin. Lost that one, too.

I guess we have a lot different country now than when Romney was elected
Gov. of Mass.

Things are changing very fast. As great as he was in his day, former Gov. of California Ronald Reagan would lose CA huge in 2012.

 

I'll put this as kindly as I can, but your 'opinion' on margins, taxes, and business in general is severely lacking and simplistic.

Do some research on what businesses pay in taxes in countries like Singapore, Indonesia, and China and then compare that to the US. We are falling down the list of competitive countries, and fast.

I take pride in employing people and wish to employ more even though Jack thinks we are all evil people (funny how that is). The business environment is only going to get tougher in the US in the future. Obama's campaign 'dream' of more manufacturing in this country is nothing but empty words. He is a well without water when it comes to generating an environment for real job growth. And many bought his lie hook, line and sinker.

Heck, for every 1 job he created, he put 75 more people on food stamps. Now that's progress !

If we want jobs instead of rhetoric, we must lower capital gains and profit taxes. But that's not going to happen now.

 

Frank,

Taxes aren't why manufacturing has left the US. We could lower the rate to 0% and remove all regulation and it would still be more profitable to produce in places like China or the next low wage place. Our cost of living can't allow us to make $2/day.

Nixon required that products produced in China had to have an offsetting percent of labor done in the US. Until something is done to control trade and force that products sold here are made here, we will be in trouble.

We can't sustain a service economy and remain relevant.

 

Frank,

I'm well aware of how margins, taxes, and business in general works. It's my job, and I'm pretty good at it. Time and time again, my performance numbers speak for themselves, and I work hard to find ways in order to make our company more profitable. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's continue.

You didn't answer my question about what happened to the new construction market. Considering I don't know your business or what market you're in, the situation I gave was somewhat of a hypothetical example. Again, I apologize if I didn't make that point clear.

In terms of margin, if you're accustomed to living off of a 30% margin after expenses paid (parts, labor, etc), and your cost of doing business increases 30%, you must either pass that on the increase to the customer, absorb it, or cut expenses. I get that.

However, when the work goes away, 30% of nothing is still nothing. So the problem becomes less about profit margin, increases in the cost of doing business, how to manage said increases, etc and more about just not having any work. Anyway, that was the basic point I was trying to make earlier.

How was Romney going to create jobs again? Oh! He was going to "lower capital gains and profit taxes" and extend Bush Jr's tax breaks to the wealthy, and they would, naturally, hire people because of those tax breaks, right? So the tax breaks to the wealthy were going to be the new "job creators", right? Even when there's just not as much "work" out there?

Sorry, I just don't buy it...hook, line, or sinker. Considering he wouldn't expound upon his "job creator" plan, it made me wonder what he's hiding and why he wouldn't elaborate.

For what it's worth, Bain just purchased one of my large vendors, Apex Tool Group. This acquisition is only a few weeks old, and there is already grapevine talk of layoffs, restructuring, and outsourcing of brands that have been made in the USA for decades. Is that progress?

 

I would say has nothing to do with tax rates and if they should be moved up or down or left the same.

The 30% increase and the need to do a bit more with less than before was from passing a bill that has funding issues just like Medicare Part D does.

This is an issue with politicians of any kind.
Rather than focus on what needs to be fixed, invent something else to work on. The 111th congress took Public Health Care to task, as this was the chance to get it started.
The focus on the economy was a back seat, toss some money at it ( vs focus on it ).

Ronnie spent money, but he did it to upright the economy, with focus and purpose, something the 111th congress did not do.
- Oddly enough, it was the same process that JFK used. So either a republican acted like a Dem or a Dem acted like a republican ( take your pick ).

Hourly ?? If so, overtime pushing you into the next bracket up ( i.e. you are getting closer to the 1% that need to pay their fair share ).
If that is not it, deduction changes ?
Hard to say, without information that is way too personal to be posting.
You would have to look at your AGI ( line 34 ? ) for those years, and figure out why ( even with a Bush tax cut ) you paid in more taxes ( and that was across the board, not just "for the rich" ).

He has an employee count that forces him into the Health Care Bill minimums, that is 50 employees or 250,000 / yr in payroll if I recall correctly.
Does not sound like a lack of work is an issue for him...
Fixed costs increasing, the 30% number that caused the 'work smarter' and do more with less conversation.

Housing bubble caused by a POTUS pumping $1B in money ( that some how did not come from tax payers ) into the housing market to have not only a chicken in every pot, but a pot in ever house.
Owning a house became a right not a privilege. This was 1996 I seem to recall.... A POTUS in Oakland CA making the joint HUD announcement....
Mandated ( read the HUD structure to the housing bill, if they did not write these types of loans they would be punished with higher than previous underwriting costs ).

Come on, we all know Gore invented the internet that lead to the inflating of wages and on the back side tax revenues from the dot com explosion.
Sure as heck was not Bill, that stage as set for this, and about the smart thing he did for his 1st term was let Alan G run things.
At the time the reconfirmation came due for him, Bill should have booted him, as he violated his #1 rule about changing interest rates.
9 months for the rate change to take effect, and at the end, Alan had no clue what was going on, and jacked up rates how many times in 9 months ? By time the 2nd increase was started to impact the economy, there were 3 more that where heading towards a slowing economy, that brought things to a screeching halt.
Soft landing ??, he pile drove it into the ground. He was out of his depth at that point, and had no idea what to make of the economy, so I suppose he figured it was time to violate his #1 rule.

Ronnie & Geo H did all the "bad things" people like to demonize them about, that actually set the stage for the next 10 + years in recovering from Carter.

 

To everyone.
The sound bite from the MSM leads some to think that only 1 part was going to be extended, not all of them....

Let's just ramp everyone right back to the Clinton tax rates and see how the economy reacts.

Let's just follow the French with anyone over $1 M in income pays 75%.

 

And that right there is the problem. You refuse to see what everyone who creates jobs is saying. And I'll be blunt, we need deeper tax, regulation, and spending cuts than what Romney was even proposing if we want manufacturing jobs back in the US. If not, we will never, yes, never see most of those jobs again. Having said that, as long as we have a CIC that is spending over 1,000,000,000,000 over budget every year, meaningful spending cuts are not possible unless you eliminate the military and raise taxes to such a high rate that stagflation will be the only result. It has been comical to see people make excuses for obama spending money like a drunken sailor, yet they were ready to crucify bush for spending less than half as much.

Costs have not gone up for me 30%, but they have gone up to the point to force a small amount of layoffs. Will I need to do more in the coming years? I'm not sure, yet. I certainly hope not.

 

Sorry to interrupt the Bain bashing, but just maybe Apex Tool Group, its employees and investors will be better off.


Would you prefer a system where two companies can't be merged without the blessing of the government? Maybe a 200 page checklist, to make sure the workers will be protected. Oh, how happy that would make the workers. Until investors stop investing.

 

Frank,

You still haven't answered me. Would 0% taxes and no regulation on the rich fix everything? Would it bring all the jobs home from China?

 

On the rich or on business ( specifically SMB ) ?

You seem to make both out to be the same thing, they are not.

Not every SMB owner is some rich fat cat lighting cigars with 100.00 bills...
- I know that goes against everything to believe, but it is true.

Try asking a real question, not a leading question to get the answer you want to hear.

 

Exactly. This isn't my first rodeo.

 

Looks like Cali doubled-down on stupid: Prop 30 and 39 passed.

The right to work states will gladly take those jobs.

 

I know exactly how it sounds. It sounds just like the uneducated poor people in my area, both black and white.

 

My guess is, Bain purchased Apex to make money. That means if they can reorganize the company and have it turn a profit relatively quickly, they will do that then sell it. The reorganization will result in lay offs and probably cutting some products or divisions (ever hear of Hummer, Pontiac, or Mercury). If having it turn around and make a profit isn't going to happen anytime soon then they will cut it up and sell the pieces to companies that are turning a profit. If Apex is shut down a competitor will take up the slack. Some of Apex's former employees will be hired by competitors others will not. What all of that means is there was excess capacity in the market. As long as that remains no company will be profitable. Unfortunately, yes this is progress. It has been happening since the beginning of time. If it didn't we would still be able to go to the general store and purchase wagon wheels. Or we could go and buy a Desoto, or Studebaker. We could also go buy a manual typewriter if this hadn't been going on, or possibly a needle for a record player at the Woolworth, or TG&Y.