Read more about the article White House Jabbing about Jobs

White House Jabbing about Jobs

white-elephantAs I’ve said here before, I don’t think our elected servants in D.C. know much about creating jobs. Let’s remember that the stimulus program was always “too little, too late” and we harped here that the length of time over which those funds would be deployed was way too long … witness today that jobs officials say more than 50% is still in the pipeline over one year later. So, no surprise it hasn’t help as much as they would have you believe. Robb Mandelbaum writing in the NY Times also agrees that there is very little in President Obama’s most recent speeches flowing from the Jobs Summit last week.

What do you think of the ideas being floated about, the key ones of which are summarized here? Will any of them help your business? Are there other ideas that could work? Fire up those fingers and add your comments here.

For one thing, the Administration continues to talk about incentive programs to spur business lending. While that would also be welcome, it doesn’t get at the root cause of unemployment and jobs growth. I’ve reported here before that lending is NOT the biggest problem in the middle market … it’s demand and revenue growth. Companies are not going to borrow except to meet demand and if demonstrable demand is present, borrowing is usually easier anyway.

One idea is to eliminate the capital gains tax for small business investing. (more…)

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Read more about the article Vol. 54: The road to cost control

Vol. 54: The road to cost control

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The North Bay Business Journal, a publication of the New York Times, is a weekly business newspaper which covers the North Bay area of San Francisco – from the Golden Gate bridge north, including the Wine Country of Sonoma and Napa counties.

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Article published -November 30 2009larykirchenbauerhdr

Is fear or kindness the road to cost control? You decide

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”

– Albert Einstein

Last time I presented the dichotomy of two opposing cultures and posed the question: If measured by financial performance, how can dramatically different organizations be equally successful? In this continuing series, we’ll explore some of the combinations and permutations of sound business principles and cultural patterns that often collide within an organization’s walls.

In many ways, it doesn’t seem fair that both charitable and churlish cultures can thrive. It’s easy to embrace the benevolent culture created by Sid Rich (we’ll call it Company South, “S” for Sid) as profiled in my last column.

That company deserves to be successful. Wouldn’t it be great if that was the company I worked for? Contrarily, when you look across the aisle at the rough and tumble world of Company North (“N” for Nasty), highlighted by temper tantrums, public floggings and a petulant devotion to spending a dime on anything, we’re either glad we’re not working there … or wishing we didn’t.

Some powerful lessons are evident as we compare and contrast these companies, their styles and culture, although some lessons are not very inviting. (more…)

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