Millionaires Collecting Unemployment?

by: Daniel Indiviglio

If you were making $1 million per year or more, but lost your job, would you file an unemployment claim? Nearly 3,000 American millionaires would have answered "yes" to this question in 2008, according to an article by Ryan J. Donmoyer at Bloomberg. IRS data shows that a whopping 2,840 households earning at least $1 million in 2008 also filed for government unemployment payments that year. There are two sort of immediate questions that arise from this fact: what were they thinking, and should this be allowed?

What They Were Thinking?

To non-millionaires it might seem absurd that people who had such a staggering income recently would turn to the government for help after losing their jobs. But it shouldn't. First, most wealthy people didn't become that way by accident. They tend to be pretty savvy about money. So if the law entitles them to collect unemployment when laid off, then they aren't the type to turn down free money. Only a fool would do that.
Moreover, for many millionaires, they might see their layoff as the one time they can finally get back some of the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars they've paid in taxes over the years. Many tax credits don't apply to them, if they're phased out for people with income above a certain threshold. They may as well cash in this once, just for principle's sake. After all, once they get back to a high paying job, they will have to revert back to paying the government a lot and getting little in return.

Should This Be Allowed?

Unemployment benefits are actually a type of insurance. And just like other kinds of insurance, it is paid out regardless of how much money you make. In this case, however, it's important to remember that the insurance payments to households that had a high-income are not directly proportional to their previous compensation. Most states have a very low unemployment payment ceiling. In New York State, for example, anyone making more than around $42,000 is paid a maximum of $405 per week — which would add up to an income rate of just $21,060 per year.
So those who enjoyed an ultra-high income can't benefit more from unemployment payments than middle or lower-class Americans. As the Bloomberg article says, these millionaires only took in $5.2 million in unemployment payments in 2008, out of the $43.7 billion total. That's just 0.012%.

In my opinion, the government could certainly pass a law that disqualifies anyone who made more than a certain income during the year from collecting unemployment. And in this case it would have saved the government not more than 7 million dollars. That's something, but this is a pretty tiny amount of money in the grand scheme of government budgets. A handful of millionaires who are enjoying what's likely a short stint of receiving government assistance hardly characterizes a serious problem so vital to the nation that it should be at the top of Congress' priorities.

What do you think?

The Wall Street Journal 2010 Technology Innovation Awards

Every year, The Wall Street Journal gives out awards for technology innovations. This year is their 10th year. With almost 600 innovations from around the world, the judges' pannel faced a difficult task to choose the first three place winners. The judges assessed the applications on three criteria:
—Does the innovation break with conventional ideas or processes in its field?
—Does it go beyond marginal improvements on something that already exists?
—Will it have a wide impact on future technology in its field or in other fields?
The gold prize winner is the Taiwan-based Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). Their innovation was a flexible display screen for everyday use. "ITRI won the top prize in this year's Innovation Awards contest for a manufacturing technique that promises to clear the way for commercial development of high-quality displays on flexible materials.
Flexible displays are attractive for several reasons: They're lighter than glass displays, making it possible to build larger consumer devices, such as e-readers or tablet computers, that aren't too heavy. They can also be used in some novel applications, such as interactive newspapers that can be bent or rolled and be as portable as the paper-based versions."

"With a stable, viable and cost-effective flexible-display technology," says Barry H. Jaruzelski, an Innovation Awards judge and a partner at consulting firm Booz & Co., "the door is opened to a wide range of truly new applications in consumer electronics and device interfaces."
But producing flexible displays in commercial quantities has proved challenging. To understand why, and why ITRI's innovation has promise, requires a brief tutorial.
Making a flexible display as fully functional as the typical flat-panel computer screen requires layering thin-film transistors on a flexible substrate. Because the flexible material can curl or shift during this process, it's bonded temporarily to a rigid piece of glass. The completed flexible display then has to be detached from the glass without being damaged, which is difficult to do efficiently enough to make the displays on a commercial scale.
ITRI's solution—which it calls FlexUPD, for flexible universal panel for displays—is novel yet simple. It places a "debonding" layer of nonadhesive material between the flexible substrate and the glass. The substrate, which has an adhesive backing, is made slightly larger than the final flexible display and the debonding layer, so it stays steady on the glass. Once the transistors are layered on the substrate and enclosed, the display can be cut out from the excess substrate and easily lifted off the glass.

The idea for the debonding layer, says an ITRI spokeswoman, came from watching cooks prepare paper-thin Taiwanese pancakes, which can be easily peeled from a pan at high temperatures. Cheng-Chung Lee and Tzong-Ming Lee, ITRI division directors, are credited with the idea.
The technique, the institute says, can be used with a variety of displays, including current liquid-crystal-display, or LCD, screens and the next-generation displays made with organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs.
ITRI has demonstrated a prototype paper-thin display made with this process, and has licensed the technology to display maker AU Optronics Corp. of Taiwan. The first product using the technology, a flexible display for an e-reader, is planned for release by the end of the year, an ITRI spokeswoman says.

Other companies have demonstrated flexible-screen prototypes and plan to bring them to market using a different manufacturing technology. None, including ITRI's technology, have yet seen commercial success, but ITRI says its improvements make its entry more cost-effective than competing technologies. Also, it says, the technology is compatible with existing factories for fabricating displays, so it can be widely adopted by display makers.
Judges for the Innovation Awards, while noting that ITRI is still in the early stages of commercializing the technology, cited the possible benefits of flexible displays. "This looks like a simple and elegant solution to a manufacturing problem," says William Webb, director of technology resources for Ofcom in the U.K.
ITRI, a nonprofit organization, won an Innovation Award in 2009 for its FleXpeaker, a paper-thin loudspeaker system."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703470904575500342513725972.html

Tornado Charts

I know we've all struggled with constructing a tornado chart to represent our data in the group assignment we did in class. I did a little research and found some helpful websites where the authors explain how to do it in a very easy way. What you basically need to do is make a table of your data, select the whole range, then go to the insert tab and click on charts to choose the stacked bar chart. After that, right click on the Y (vertical) axis, select format and tick categories in reverse order and next to horizontal axis crosses at maximum value. and VOILA your tornado chart is done!! http://peltiertech.com/Excel/Charts/tornadochart.html

There are so many ways to do it; here is another easy process you may like to use:
http://8020world.com/jcmendez/2007/02/business/easy-creation-of-tornado-charts-in-excel-5-steps-no-add-ins/

10 Mistakes That Start-Up Entrepreneurs Make

"When it comes to starting a successful business, there's no surefire playbook that contains the winning game plan." This is how Rosalind Resnick started his Wall Street Journal article about the ten mistakes that beginner entrepreneurs can make. As an aspiring entrepreneur, I found this to be a very interesting and helpful article. I hope you'll find it so too.

The article: http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/110551/mistakes-of-startup-entrepreneurs?mod=career-leadership

10 Mistakes That Start-Up Entrepreneurs Make
by Rosalind ResnickTuesday, September 14, 2010

When it comes to starting a successful business, there's no surefire playbook that contains the winning game plan. On the other hand, there are about as many mistakes to be made as there are entrepreneurs to make them.
Recently, after a work-out at the gym with my trainer -- an attractive young woman who's also a dancer/actor -- she told me about a web series that she's producing and starring in together with a few friends. While the series has gained a large following online, she and her friends have not yet incorporated their venture, drafted an operating agreement, trademarked the show's name or done any of the other things that businesses typically do to protect their intellectual property and divvy up the owners' share of the company. While none of this may be a problem now, I told her, just wait until the show hits it big and everybody hires a lawyer.
Here, in my experience, are the top 10 mistakes that entrepreneurs make when starting a company:

1. Going it alone.
It's difficult to build a scalable business if you're the only person involved. True, a solo public relations, web design or consulting firm may require little capital to start, and the price of hiring even one administrative assistant, sales representative or entry-level employee can eat up a big chunk of your profits. The solution: Make sure there's enough margin in your pricing to enable you to bring in other people. Clients generally don't mind outsourcing as long as they can still get face time with you, the skilled professional who's managing the project.

2. Asking too many people for advice.
It's always good to get input from experts, especially experienced entrepreneurs who've built and sold successful companies in your industry. But getting too many people's opinions can delay your decision so long that your company never gets out of the starting gate. The answer: Assemble a solid advisory board that you can tap on a regular basis but run the day-to-day yourself. Says Elyissia Wassung, chief executive of 2 Chicks With Chocolate Inc., a Matawan, N.J., chocolate company, "Pull in your [advisory] team for bi-weekly or, at the very least, monthly conference calls. You'll wish you did it sooner!"

3. Spending too much time on product development, not enough on sales.
While it's hard to build a great company without a great product, entrepreneurs who spend too much time tinkering may lose customers to a competitor with a stronger sales organization. "I call [this misstep] the 'Field of Dreams' of entrepreneurship. If you build it, they will buy it," says Sanjyot Dunung, CEO of Atma Global, Inc., a New York software publisher, who has made this mistake in her own business. "If you don't keep one eye firmly focused on sales, you'll likely run out of money and energy before you can successfully get your product to market."

4. Targeting too small a market.
It's tempting to try to corner a niche, but your company's growth will quickly hit a wall if the market you're targeting is too tiny. Think about all the high school basketball stars who dream of playing in the NBA. Because there are only 30 teams and each team employs only a handful of players, the chances that your son will become the next Michael Jordan are pretty slim. The solution: Pick a bigger market that gives you the chance to grab a slice of the pie even if your company remains a smaller player.

5. Entering a market with no distribution partner.
It's easier to break into a market if there's already a network of agents, brokers, manufacturers' reps and other third-party resellers ready, willing and able to sell your product into existing distribution channels. Fashion, food, media and other major industries work this way; others are not so lucky. That's why service businesses like public relations firms, yoga studios and pet-grooming companies often struggle to survive, alternating between feast and famine. The solution: Make a list of potential referral sources before you start your business and ask them if they'd be willing to send business your way.

6. Overpaying for customers.
Spending big on advertising may bring in lots of customers, but it's a money-losing strategy if your company can't turn those dollars into lifetime customer value. A magazine or website that spends $500 worth of advertising to acquire a customer who pays $20 a month and cancels his or her subscription at the end of the year is simply pouring money down the drain. The solution: Test, measure, then test again. Once you've done enough testing to figure out how to make more money selling products and services to your customers than you spend acquiring those customers in the first place, roll out a major marketing campaign.

7. Raising too little capital.
Many start-ups assume that all they need is enough money to rent space, buy equipment, stock inventory and drive customers through the door. What they often forget is that they also need capital to pay for salaries, utilities, insurance and other overhead expenses until their company starts turning a profit. Unless you're running the kind of business where everybody's working for sweat equity and deferring compensation, you'll need to raise enough money to tide you over until your revenues can cover your expenses and generate positive cash flow. The solution: Calculate your start-up costs before you open your doors, not afterwards.

8. Raising too much capital.
Believe it or not, raising too much money can be a problem, too. Over-funded companies tend to get big and bloated, hiring too many people too soon and wasting valuable resources on trade show booths, parties, image ads and other frills. When the money runs out and investors lose patience (which is what happened 10 years ago when the dot-com market melted down), start-ups that frittered away their cash will have to close their doors. No matter how much money you raise at the outset, remember to bank some for a rainy day.

9. Not having a business plan.
While not every company needs a formal business plan, a start-up that requires significant capital to grow and more than a year to turn a profit should map out how much time and money it's going to take to get to its destination. This means thinking through the key metrics that make your business tick and building a model to spin off three years of sales, profits and cash-flow projections. "I wasted 10 years [fooling around] thinking like an artist and not a business person," says Louis Piscione, president of Avanti Media Group, a New Jersey company that produces videos for corporate and private events. "I learned that you have to put some of your creative genius toward a business plan that forecasts and sets goals for growth and success."

10. Over-thinking your business plan.
While many entrepreneurs I've met engage in seat-of-the-pants decision-making and fail to do their homework, other entrepreneurs are afraid to pull the trigger until they're 100% certain that their plan will succeed. One lawyer I worked with several years ago was so skittish about leaving his six-figure job to launch his business that he never met with a single bank or investor who might have funded his company. The truth is that a business plan is not a crystal ball that can predict the future. At a certain point, you have to close your eyes and take the leap of faith.
Despite the many books and articles that have been written about entrepreneurship, it's just not possible to start a company without making a few mistakes along the way. Just try to avoid making any mistake so large that your company can't get back on its feet to fight another day

Words of Wisdom

Wisdom is the sharing of wise experiences and knowledge, but a lot of it is common sense. The difference is how we apply this common sense. We all have the ability to keep going even when we face challenges in our lives (basically it comes down to your attitude).
We can have a positive attitude towards life, or a negative attitude. We can focus on the good or we can focus on the bad. Keeping a positive mental attitude is one of the keys to success.

The choice is always up to you!!