Editor’s note: Here’s a question-and-answer session with Claire Damken Brown, founder and president of Damken Brown & Associates, a Colorado consulting firm that specializes in diversity and equal employment opportunity strategies, gender communication, sexual harassment prevention and cultural competency. Brown is scheduled to lead a presentation at a Sept. 21 meeting of the Western Colorado Human Resource […]
As a veteran of the business world, I certainly understand why many business owners are apprehensive about the health care system. They have enough on their plates simply dealing with the day-to-day challenges of a slowly recovering economy, meeting payroll, making a profit and keeping the lights on. Businesses already pay a bulk of health […]
Politicians are fond of picking numbers out of thin air to suit their particular agendas. They feel if one repeats the numbers often enough, like many in the mainstream media are all too happy to do, then Americans will come to accept them as an unquestioned truth. More importantly, these truths become things that only […]
Everyone tired of the well-worn phrase “challenging economic times” probably won’t like much better the latest description of growth in business revenues and hiring that’s, in a word, “slow.” But that’s the adjective that keeps coming up when economists and business owners talk about the economy. It’s little wonder the recovery doesn’t feel like much […]
Could yours be the perfect invention to aid U.S. combat soldiers? Have you created a vaccine that could possibly rid the world of a deadly disease? Do you think you could be the next Bill Gates? Perhaps your ideas or inventions aren’t as grand as these, but you need a little assistance with funding your […]
To the editor: The June 22 article, “State to bill businesses to pay back jobless benefits loan,” included several inaccuracies. It is critical that all employers fully understand the situation at hand, what must be done and why it must be done. That requires an open, transparent and accurate communication to everyone. Some important points […]
Not surprisingly, many small business owners are bottom-line people. When it comes to government actions, they prefer to put aside the flowery rhetoric and fuzzy political promises for bottom-line public policies. That is, are these steps being taken by government going to be good for the economy and business or not? In New Jersey, decades […]
In the media business, the old saying “don’t shoot the messenger” applies in cases in which outlets report news people might not want to hear. But in several recent instances in the Grand Valley, much of the media didn’t have the chance to decide whether or not to pass along the messages because they never […]
A recent front-page story in USA Today should have grabbed the attention of anyone concerned about economic growth and job creation. The headline? “Weakest startups since early ’90s.” USA Today reported that, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 12-month period ending in March 2011 experienced the slowest new business startups over 12 months […]
After a three-judge federal panel heard arguments by the National Federation of Independent Business and 26 states that President Barack Obama’s health reform law violates the Constitution, one major newspaper columnist wrote he’d almost “bet the house” the lawsuit will wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court. We at NFIB are encouraged, too, because our […]