Archive: December, 2009
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
Small business is like apple pie.
You get a flavor of that in the speeches of every politician, including the president, who has been on a small-business kick in the last couple of weeks.
“These are companies formed around kitchen tables in family meetings, formed when an entrepreneur takes a chance on a dream, formed when a worker decides it’s time she became her own boss,” President Obama said Dec. 8th at the Brookings Institution.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
Just because the recession may be over doesn’t mean businesses are ready to sprint again.
In fact, after limping along for more than a year, most executives and board members of Philadelphia-area firms said they don’t expect “business as usual” for at least the next four years.
Such was the apprehension detected by the latest survey conducted by KPMG L.L.P.’s Audit Committee Institute.
I know President Obama is eager for “fat cat” bankers to turn on the loan spigots so that the nation’s small-business owners can hang up help-wanted signs and put all Americans back to work.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
The proxy contest between USA Technologies Inc. and several dissident shareholders has a new venue: federal court in Philadelphia.
The Malvern company that provides cashless-payment processing technology for vending machines last week postponed its annual shareholders meeting, set for Dec. 15, until June 15.
On Monday, shareholders Bradley M. Tirpak and Craig W. Thomas filed a civil lawsuit against USA Technologies and its board over the delay. Tirpak and Thomas, calling themselves Shareholder Advocates for Value Enhancement, have been seeking to place three people on USA Technologies’ board. (One of those nominees is Tirpak.)
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
For the first time in nearly 30 years, Kulicke & Soffa Industries Inc. will be looking for a chief executive officer.
C. Scott Kulicke told the board of the Fort Washington maker of semiconductor-assembly equipment that he intended to retire at the end of June 2011, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Kulicke, 60, has been CEO since 1980. If that sounds like a long time to helm just about any organization, let me put it this way: The Philadelphia Phillies have had 11 managers since then.
Michael Rubin, who built a global business in King of Prussia by selling stuff online for big-name retailers, says he underestimated how huge Internet sales would become.
And he tips his hat to Amazon.com Inc. and its chief executive officer, Jeff Bezos, for that.
The latest Livingston Survey came out yesterday in Philadelphia. For 63 years, the semiannual report has taken the temperature of a panel of economists to predict gross domestic product, unemployment, inflation, interest rates, and stock market trends.
The new results are a mixed bag, predicting slow growth, low-grade inflation, and a flat stock market for the year to come.
It’s not much to crow about, but this group apparently isn’t seeing any cliffs on the path ahead, either.
President Obama’s new plan for helping small businesses recover from the recession will be a tough sell to the mom-and-pop employers behind so much of the economy, according to a Philadelphia economist in touch with thousands of business owners.
“I still need customers to make it justified to hire somebody,” William Dunkelberg, chief economist for the 400,000-member National Federation of Independent Business, told me after reviewing yesterday’s Obama proposals.
To boost employment, the president called for an income-tax cut for small businesses that hire in 2010, a one-year elimination of capital-gains taxes on profits from small-business stocks, relaxation of rules on expensing and depreciation, cuts on business loan fees, and extended loan guarantees.
To say it’s been a tough two years in the world of small business is an understatement, and many business owners continue to find little to cheer them.
But, as the economy has staggered, owners at a baker’s dozen of area companies joined one effort to better their chances for success and growth.
Those Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware business owners — most managing firms with just a handful of employees — graduated yesterday from a six-month course put on by the federal Small Business Administration and designed to give M.B.A.-style tools to entrepreneurs who normally wouldn’t have the time or the resources to go after them.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
When an economist has just released a book covering eight centuries of financial crises, you shouldn’t expect her to talk about looking on the bright side of things.
At Friday’s Philadelphia Fed Policy Forum, Carmen M. Reinhart brought the cold statistics to document how bad the current crisis is, and she had an admonishment.
“Complacency has been a killer in this crisis,” she told those assembled.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
No doubt, President Obama had a more enjoyable day at his jobs summit than Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke did at his renomination roasting.
Watching a webcast of the president taking questions from the businesspeople and others in attendance, I saw a leader who’s quick on his feet and able to stick to the themes of his economic recovery plan.
Elsewhere in Washington, the more important meeting featured the Fed chairman getting grilled by members of the Senate Banking Committee. Call it a draw. The senators bruised him, but Bernanke didn’t crack.
Mike Armstrong blogs about Philadelphia corporations and business-related topics. Contact him at 215-854-2980.
Reach Mike at marmstrong@phillynews.com.
