In this third installment of an ongoing series, I explore what people face if they don’t consider going off and starting their own business.

As the stick is a far more effective (if less desired) teacher than the carrot, I’ll cut to the chase. You need to realize how limited, and likely how miserable, your entire life will be if you don’t consider this option.

Of course, most people don’t cross this bridge, and many people have no business trying. The economy needs employees, followers, loyal consumers. I’m just saying that the opinion leaders, the movers and shakers, turned their backs on the path followed by most everyone else. It depends on what you want.

If you want to control your life, to be able to decide what to do, when to do it and with whom to do it, you have to be some sort of entrepreneur. That does not mean being fabulously wealthy, unless you define wealth in a non-monetary sense, that being measured simply as the freedom from control by someone else.

But here is the sticking point. To become and remain an employee, you must always be willing to be controlled. And as control requires dependence, because dependence enhances control, you will quickly end up in a quicksand where your life is Groundhog Day.

Thank you,

With so much talk these days about corporate social responsibility, many companies are feeling compelled to jump on the values bandwagon. Because of their agility, small businesses in particular are at the forefront of what is becoming a responsibility revolution.

But, what does it really mean to be a Value Driven Non Profit Business? Simply selling ideas does not classify a company as values-led.

As Founder and President of the Financial Policy Council for the last three years now, a New York not-for-profit corporation tax-exempt under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3), here are some tips for succeeding as a social entrepreneur.

For More: Building a Value Driven Non Profit Business

Thank you,

Suspicions among white-collar professionals that the recovery is an illusion, or at least has left them behind, are validated by official government data buried in the monthly employment reports, based on household surveys, which few bother to actually read.

Even more worrisome is the continuation of a decade-long decline in the number of self-employed, a category which includes many of these same professionals.

While even the seasonally-adjusted employment data show an uptick in five of the six unemployment measures (Table A-15 of the January 2015 jobs report, available at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm), the unadjusted numbers in the same table show a measurable increase in unemployment.

However, that is not news to the white-collar workforce which has not fully recovered and which may never recover. Remember that the official data, if anything, paints a rosier picture than reality, because it is based on methodologies which strain to overstate employment and understate unemployment.

First, the reported data shows a rise in unemployment among the “management, professional and related occupations” in January 2015 from December 2014 by 173,000, while reported employment in the sector is up 479,000.  The numbers, not adjusted for seasonality, actually support an increase in the sector’s reported unemployment rate to 2.9%. In fact, reported unemployment among the “professional and related occupations”(1) and “management, business and financial operations” sectors is nearly double what it was in December 2007.

One Up on Wall Street: My Favorite Way to Beat the Market – By Mark Skousen – Financial Policy Council
Thursday, 25 June 2015
6:00 – 9:00 PM

Mark Skousen, Ph. D., Editor of Forecasts & Strategies, is a nationally known investment expert, economist, university professor, and author of more than 25 books. Currently Skousen is a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University. He recently was named one of the 20 most influential living economists. He earned his Ph. D. in monetary economics at George Washington University in 1977. He has taught economics and finance at Columbia Business School, Columbia University, Grantham University, Barnard College, Mercy College, Rollins College and Chapman University. He also has been a consultant to IBM, Hutchinson Technology and other Fortune 500 companies.

Topic: One Up on Wall Street:  My Favorite Way to Beat the Market

Date: Thursday June 25, 2015

Time: 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Location: The Graduate Center / CUNY at 365 Fifth Avenue at The Elebash Recital Hall – On the main floor of the building and on the left as you enter into the main lobby

Registration:

Please register as soon as you can by answering directly to the Board member who invited you as this event is “by invitation” only and as seating is limited.

If not, please go to Donations Page and fill in your full information as a “Supporter” and you will get a confirmation by return Email.

Looking forward to seeing you then and there!

Have a great day.

“Anyone who believes in indefinite growth in anything physical, on a physically finite planet, is either mad or an economist.”
― Kenneth E. Boulding
Yes it is always easy to poke fun at economic forecasts, especially because they usually turn out to be wrong, often by a large margin. However, before laughing them off, think about what is being asked of those forecasts and the economists making them by considering the below analogy.

I presume that most of you reading this own a car and have a license to drive it. The license certifies you to be minimally competent drivers, sort of the way a Ph.D. certifies an economist to have a minimal command of economics. Nonetheless, it is very easy to prove that you are all incompetent fools who know nothing about how a car works or how to drive it and thus to prove that drivers’ licenses are a big joke

For More: About Those Mad Egomaniacs We Call Economists

Everyone today would love to see a deal with Iran, but let’s face reality folks. Iran is no peace partner and no ally to the West and will never be as long as the mullahs are in power.

It is a fact that no matter how much the Iranian propagandists try to sell Iran as a country with a very vibrant society, eager to embrace the West, Iran’s record of press freedom and human rights is dismal and its sponsoring of terrorists the world over – starting with Hezbollah – is second to none.

Just take a close look at Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei when delivering speeches in front of hyped-up citizens pumping their fists in the air and chanting “death to America.” and see for yourself. Or take a closer look at other Iranian leaders boasting about how Tehran “controls four Arab capitals …or go and listen to the Iranian top protégé Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, continuing to launch vitriol against Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other sovereign nations. Complete lunatics on the loose.

For More: Iran is No Peace Partner

Thank you,

To be perfectly candid, I am not saying stocks are “a bubble” today. I am not saying prices are “ridiculous.” I am not saying the things that some of the louder doom-and-gloomers are howling about the coming devastation.

But I certainly think that what’s happening today is, in large part, the result of unsustainable easy-money policies from the Fed, and that it is too good to last.

One of the most important things you can do as an investor is to try to seek out smart arguments that lay out the opposite side of the views that you hold. In other words, if you’re bullish, you should seek out smart bears, and vice versa.

And if you’re so sure that stocks are just going to keep going up and that anyone who voices caution is a moron — then at least think about this

Someday, financial markets will again decline. Someday, rising stock and bond markets will no longer be government policy – maybe not today or tomorrow, but someday. Someday, QE will end and money won’t be free. Someday, corporate failure will be permitted.

For More: Bullish on Stocks?

Thank You,