Business Tips

Would You Fire Someone for Smoking?

January 25th, 2012

Smart business owners always look for opportunities to reduce unnecessary costs. Learn what costs to cut – or not to cut.

A police officer of 17 years was fired for repeatedly smoking cigarettes inside the precinct, a violation of a no-smoking policy.

Harold Dunivant, the chief of police in the west Tennessee city of Newbern, fired Sgt. James Bishop last week for repeatedly smoking indoors. Since 2007, the city has prohibited smoking inside all municipal offices and buildings.

Bishop’s termination letter—obtained by the Dyersburg State Gazette—states the no-smoking policy, and reminds Bishop that city employees were informed of the policy in 2007 through a memo. Duni

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Tags: Fire, Fire Smoking

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Facebook forces Timeline; users’ past more visible

January 23rd, 2012

NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook will start requiring people to switch to a new profile format known as Timeline, making photos, links and personal musings from the past much easier to find.

Timeline is essentially a scrapbook of your whole life on Facebook. By contrast, Facebook’s traditional profile page is more of a snapshot of you today.

Although some people have already voluntarily switched to Timeline, Facebook hadn’t made that mandatory. Beginning Tuesday, Facebook is telling some users that they have seven days to clean up their profiles before Timeline gets automatically activated. Facebook is rolling out the requirement to others over the next few weeks.

At some point, even those who haven’t logged on to Facebook in a while will be automatically switched.

Tags: Timeline, Timeline Users

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Payroll tax negotiations open amid optimism

January 18th, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — Negotiations to renew a payroll tax cut for 160 million workers and jobless benefits for millions more kicked off on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, with both sides optimistic of an agreement despite last year’s bitter battles over President Barack Obama’s jobs proposals.

The House-Senate talks will focus chiefly on finding ways to finance the $10 billion a month cost of a 2 percentage point cut in Social Security payroll taxes that awards a worker making a typical $50,000 salary a tax cut of about $20 a week. Lawmakers also need to pay for the $45 billion or so cost of renewing jobless benefits for people out of work for more than half a year and the $20 billion a year cost of making sure doctors aren’t hit with massive cuts to their Medicare payments.

Negotiators face a Feb. 2

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Tags: Payroll Tax, Tax

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Smaller retail sales increase projected for 2012

January 18th, 2012

New York —

The nation’s largest retail trade group expects a solid 3.4 percent increase in sales this year, below last year’s 4.7 percent increase as job woes weigh on shoppers.

Sales should reach $2.53 trillion in 2012, up from last year’s $2.45 trillion, boosted in part by higher prices across all goods, according to a report being released today from the National Retail Federation.

The 3.4 percent bump would still outpace the 10-year annual average increase of almost 3.1 percent and would also mark a third consecutive year of recovery for consumer spending. Sales slumped 3.5 percent in 2009 with the nation still deep in recession.

However, sales remain well below the more robust figures of 5.5 percent or more that the country would typically see in better economic times.

The retail sales forecast – which excludes sales of autos, gas and restaurants – was shaped by a variety of economic headwinds.

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Tags: Increase, Increase Projected

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A Bed Time Story Venture Capitalists Tell Their Children

January 15th, 2012

Once upon a time, back in the days of yore, when entrepreneurs went by names like “Jeff Bezos”, Internet retailers were the investment rage, and Harvard still printed a face book of its students on paper, there was a ritual that many venture capital backed participated in. It was called the “initial public offering.”

Now, many of you are young and can’t remember the 1990s, so let me tell you about this ritual. The founders of companies would sell shares of those businesses to the public and the businesses would be listed on the stock exchange.

This ritual, my children, is rarely used anymore. Like other ancient tools like the typewriter and the phonograph, the IPO-as-exit-vehicle has been replaced by a more modern tool: the acquisition.

recently released its counts of the number of venture capital-backed companies that exited in 2011, and the numbers tell the story of the lost IPO-as-exit-vehicle. The data

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Tags: Time, Time Story

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Markets shrug off S&P downgrades, focus on Greece

January 13th, 2012

08:59 PST LONDON, United Kingdom –

European markets responded calmly to Standard & Poor’s decision to cut the credit ratings of a number of euro countries as France managed to tap bond market investors Monday despite the loss of its cherished triple-A rating.

The downgrades, which were based on concerns over Europe’s ability to handle its two-year debt crisis and the lack of economic growth, had been anticipated for weeks so the market impact was muted, especially since the U.S. is on holiday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Europe is set to remain the focus of attention all week as a number of bond auctions are due and Greece tries to clinch a debt deal with its private creditors.

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Tags: Markets, Markets Shrug

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