Political Campaigns as Customers: Big Market, Big Risk

Political campaigns around the country will spend billions of dollars buying the goods and services necessary (and maybe not necessary but stuff they buy anyway) to get their candidates elected. We hear daily how much the candidates are spending and it’s not just on advertising. Campaigns buy other promotional items, food, transportation, computers, communication equipment, office equipment and supplies,...

Blog Rewind: The Truth About the FairTax

I wrote the following blog in 2006. Not much has changed — especially the fact that the FairTax would solve most of our economic problems and allow business owners to focus on growing their companies and creating jobs instead of worrying about their tax strategies. Grassroots support for the FairTax Act (H.R. 25) is growing, prompting those who are afraid of it to distort the facts and engage in...

Corporations, Politics, Money, and Influence

A few days ago, the writer of an op-ed piece in the local paper said that we needed to get “corporate money” out of politics and suggested that the way to do that was through legislation. I disagree. We’ve got plenty of laws. We don’t need any more of them. (Although I wouldn’t oppose a law shortening the presidential election cycle, but that’s another issue.) That statement...

Paul Azinger and a High School Teacher: Why Your Company Needs a Social Media Policy

Recently a Florida high school teacher was suspended for controversial comments he made about same-sex marriage on his personal Facebook page. Pro golfer and ESPN analyst Paul Azingercaught some flak from ESPN for comments he made on Twitter about President Obama’s performance.   The high school teacher was reinstated and ESPN is handling the Azinger issue “internally” according to its social networking...

What is a Right to Work State?

As issues relating to unions, collective bargaining, and wages and benefits dominate the news, a term that is often misunderstood and misused is “right to work.” You will hear, for example, that Florida is a right to work state and New York is not. But what does that mean? Very simply, a right to work state is one in which people have the right to be employed without being forced to join or pay dues to a labor...