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To Build Up Local Manufacturing

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

I was reading some news articles about building up manufacturing in the United States and the secret will have to be for investors to be happy with slimmer returns until things get going again.  I think that some companies are on the right track because the United States, being one of the leading consumer countries is also capable of making someone more profitable than in other places given time.

I have been saying for years that people need to invest in themselves, here in the U.S.  and start their own businesses if they can. 

You can also get some financial survival ideas from by book here.

Be safe people and remember it is tax time and drop me a note if you have questions or want somebody to do your return for you.  I am here to help.

Kim Greenblatt

To Build Up Local Manufacturing

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Dead Peasant Dead Janitor Insurance

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

The news has been carrying again the information on “Dead Peasant or Dead Janitor” insurance.  The corporate insuring of their employees and making of premiums way beyond the person has been employed has been around for decades.

It has been profitable for commercial banks and insurance companies have been able to conduct business by collecting the premiums under more lenient group insurance policies.

I first found out about it decades ago in the 1980s working at a bank when I read in the small print that I would get a free $10,000 life insurance policy but I was also allowing the company to get a $50,000 life insurance policy on me.  I asked about it at a Human Resources meeting for our annual sign up for 401K, medical, etc and she was not aware of anything and she freaked.  Word got out through the company and I think that bank may have initially not allowed the process to continue.

The benefit for big banks and companies is that the insurance proceeds paid by them help fund the retirement programs that they set up for employees or at least that is the theory behind it.  I hear about widows finding out that their late husband’s insurance was only $25000 and yet the company is making $100,000 on them and legally I don’t think they have a case to stand on.

Ethically, it is a bunch of crap, of course, and depending on what is doing and working, you may want to inquire if upon your quitting the company that they no longer have an insurable interest in you.

I am not certain how to do that but at the very least you may want to draft a polite letter and send it over certified mail and leave a copy for your husband or wife or beneficiary so that they can check to see that you aren’t going to die for the benefit of a company you haven’t worked for (or gotten benefits from) for years.

I also am always puzzled what keeps companies from bumping off their elder employees to collect their insurance proceeds.  Pundits have said that is a reason that stores hire elderly greeters.  They don’t have to wait too long to collect their proceeds mu-ha ha.

In other news, today is the day for hitting your quarterly tax payments and I hope you have your tax returns completed if you have filed for an extension.  I have seen people at this time of the year not able to afford doing their tax returns and I understand and sympathize.

I also think that if you are at a deadline it isn’t a great idea to split hairs especially if potential penalties and aggrevation look to be over several hundred dollars.  Sometimes it is a lot easier to pay the money and just get it done.

Also for those of you e-mailing me about investing in gold, this is the time if you want to try and play for the “pop” where the price has a shot at going and staying up.  There are holidays and celebrations in Asia (especially in India) and gold is the gift of choice.  I would say another safe place to invest in is not guns, but ammunition seeing how there is an alleged “shortage” at least here in California.  The truth is that people are hoarding it in fear of legislation to limit the purchase of ammo.  The reality is that I think there are more important worries for government right now and money is tight everywhere.  Just my thoughts on the subject.

A good play may be the raw materials that are used in ammunition since internationally they are being hoarded by nations as well in these uncertain times.  Do your own research on this though, okay?

Hope you all have a great day and don’t take out any insurance on yourselves that you don’t need or you may be driving to work one day and see a laser target on your forehead!

Sep 15 2009

Also, please  don’t quite go anywhere yet.  Having some tax issues or tax questions?  Any problems with trying to make it through the financial Depression we are in that is making you depressed?  Please read on.

I am expanding  my practice and taking on new tax clients.  If you are interested in having somebody who is a successful businessman and tax professional with integrity review your returns discretely and see if your tax guy or gal is doing a good or goofy job, please drop me an email or post a comment with your contact information and time.

I have experience in international business, small businesses, partnerships, multi-state tax returns (they can get complicated) and anything else you can probably think of.

I also do business consulting and have ran several businesses (still running a few) myself so you are in good hands.  Did I also mention that I have authored over a dozen books that are still in print?  I invite you to please check them out.

If you are looking for a day job, part time work, suggestions for saving money or investing, please check out my book, Practical Money Making, that is listed right after his paragraph in this very post. There are some great suggestions and ways to survive the Depression we are in.

Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement

Interested in any of my books? You may want to make a stop over here. Please click through to purchase my books and some other interesting items that actually ARE on sale.

Have you read my book, “Bad Tax Idea, Good Tax Idea“? Please order it today. The tips inside can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars! Tax planning should be done year round and not just two weeks into January or later.

Part of all the proceeds from the sales of that book go to Rett Syndrome research. One girl is born with Rett Syndrome worldwide every fifteen minutes. My daughter Arianna has Rett.  Thanks for your support.

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

Dead Peasant Dead Janitor Insurance

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Make Small or Make Big? It Doesn’t Matter Just Make Something

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

I have been harping for at least a year on the benefits of the United States going back to a manufacturing economy and I don’t think it is too late for us to pull it off.  The important things to have to materialize the situation are:

 

  1.  Positive Government Environment – That means that we need tax incentives to jumpstart the battery of our local economies.  Don’t be fooled, we have plenty of talent and creative souls who are waiting to start, or in some cases jump back in, to their respective businesses but for them to be profitable, they will need to have the support of the state and local governments.  As of now, I see that sporadically in some states and sadly, California is lagging behind like the zebra that is falling away from the herd.  That means that lions and predators in the form of unemployment and continued financial Depression can gnaw deeply into our delicate bones.  Internally, some cities like San Diego are making a play to get more motion picture industry business into their area.   We are dropping the ball in the Los Angeles area and we need to not only pass legislation to keep whatever entertainment industry is left but to also get other businesses to start opening shop here in Los Angeles.  I get it that the city is underfunded but we need to get people to stay in the city and county and work legally so they can be taxed at a reasonable rate and they can grow.  At the current time of this entry, businesses are fleeing the Southland and even the US.    Folks, please write our Congressional leaders, the President, the Governors and get them to cut our local laws some slack to encourage business to stay and not flee.  I am not saying that we give away the farm in terms of tax breaks because I love paved highways, clean waterways and running water as much as the next person.  I am saying that we shouldn’t tax the poor businessman or woman to death just to raise revenues.  There are other ways of getting money and we really need to float more bond issues.
  2. Limited Robotics and Local Labor Employment – Most of manufacturing on a large scale, like the automotive business, is done with robots.  That does not employ a heck of a lot of humans so the type of work that we need to generate has to be a mixture of machines and men.  We may not have to go the pure Chinese model route, where you employ only human beings to hand make goods though that is an excellent way of working towards full employment.  The downside is that it isn’t efficient and employers would go broke with salary and hourly payrolls that they wouldn’t need if they had automated production for some of their work.  Pure robotics doesn’t work because they won’t get the average person working and making money.  Another factor when it comes to robotics is that they need servicing and you are going to need to have some local support in case your machines break down.  You will need to invest in local mechanics or have your staff trained so that they can be in a position to handle programming upgrades, repair robotic arms, fix wiring breakdowns and all of the little things that can and do go wrong with repetitive motion.
  3. Remember basic economics, gang.  You need people to make money so they will have it to spend.  That in turn will get people to start hiring and create even more jobs and create an upward spiral instead of the downward one that we are in right now.  Size doesn’t matter in what you are producing – Whether you are making socks by hand, pencils, or high tech circuit boards, the important thing in my mind and heart is for you to be manufacturing something.   Manufacturing of goods produces something in a very physical sense that cannot be stolen virtually and if it is something that people need and can afford at a decent price, you will be set.  There are plenty of companies who have been making pens and pencils for generations and they will continue to do so even though foreign competition has tried to undercut them.  If something is made of good quality, people will pay a little more for it.  In this case, it is worth spending fifty cents apiece for a pen rather than five cents if the pen will last a few months versus crapping out and drying out within two days of usage.  One of the biggest issues with a lot of Chinese made goods is that they were falling apart.  It was profitable to go ahead and buy them only until you realized that you lost money because you had to replace them sooner.  It never is a good idea to go with the lowest bidder if you constantly have to replace products.  It just doesn’t make good financial or common sense.
  4. Good relations with your business community and any chambers of commerce- It pays to make friends with the people in your community.  That is an important part in working with people to get them employed, getting permits to start your business and having the local climate work for you in getting your manufacturing business going rather than have it slog along and having to deal with committees trying to approve this and that for your gig.  You also can’t buy go word of mouth relations with your business because that kind of response spreads and helps the community and the world see what kind of great guy or gal you are in terms of doing business with, working for or buying goods from.  Even though the book value of good will tends to be over-valued, the real life value of the situation is that it makes life easier for you, your clients and the world at large if you are a decent, fair businessperson.
  5. Limited liability insurance if need be with your product.  In today’s society,  people are stupid and greedy.  They will spill a hot cup of coffee on themselves and try to sue the restaurant they bought it at because they scalded their privates.  You will need to protect yourself as best as you can with insurance.  The good news is that policies for certain things run cheap and as long as you have good training, good safety skills – especially if you have heavy machinery, you will be okay.  Take a tip from old factories and post signs that show how many days you had without any accidents.  Encourage and reward good business practices.  You can always punish the people who don’t practice safety by firing them or let them cut their own fingers off.  I am just kidding about the second half of that last sentence.  Seriously, don’t let your staff lose digits or limbs. 
  6. Make sure that you have a clear direction and a business plan for your product.  This should be the number one thing that you should be working on prior to spending a dime on your plans.  Have you looked at all the licensing and reporting requirements?  If there are food packaging issues, have you contacted the appropriate certification agencies or boards?  The last thing you want is to start up a great food manufacturing plant and have it shut down because you didn’t get the appropriate form filled out.  That sucks. 
  7. Hire and train people of all ages.  If people are in good shape, willing to work, don’t discriminate against them because they are too old or too young.  You get experience with older workers who will work without giving you grief and you will get energy and enthusiasm from younger workers who are trying to make a buck to buy their cars and houses.  Well, you probably have older employee candidates who are trying to do the same thing but you know what I am yapping about.  It makes for a better workplace than keeping it cliquish.   There is also a great benefit for getting people across multi-generations and groups excited about your business and your product.  There is a reason you see so many ethnically balanced web sites with people of many colors and religions.  We are all different and want to be respected.  If you can get a person’s respect, they will want to do business with you and purchase your stuff.
  8. Look for places to open up your factory where you can run all night if you have to.  You may have extensive automated machinery that needs to keep running all night with a skeleton crew.  If some of it is a little on the noisy side, look for parts of the community where you won’t hear the echoes of commerce at 3 am.  Where I live it is so quiet we sometimes hear the trains that run literally miles away.  Canyons and valleys echo like crazy.
  9. Use local manpower.  There is a lot of talent in every community.  I may be yakking too much on this but there is no shortage of trained and willing workers here in the United States, here in your state and here in your local city.  Get them working.  They will reward you with good, productive efforts and they will have the money to spend to keep things going in your neighborhoods.
  10. Scream to the world with press releases, Internet entries, celebrity parties, etc that you are doing business.  Get people to know that you are out there and you will make sales.  Your local chambers of commerce should help you get the word out and if you can get local celebrities or sports people to come by (especially for free or if they owe you a favor because you loaned them money when they were first starting out) you can create buzz.  Make sure whatever it is that you are selling works.  If you are making shoes, make sure that they don’t fall apart or off of your feet.  There isn’t a profitable thing about watching an attractive celebrity have her shoes fall apart for your business though the hilarity and Internet Youtube hits will make your company infamous for a few weeks.

 

So get busy.  Keep me posted as to how things are going and we can do this.  Approach your local banks for money with your successfully written business plan and start going with your gig.

 

Hey, don’t go anywhere yet.  Having some tax issues or tax questions?  Any problems with trying to make it through the financial Depression we are in that is making you depressed?  Please read on.

I am expanding  my practice and taking on new tax clients.  If you are interested in having somebody who is a successful businessman and tax professional with integrity review your returns discretely and see if your tax guy or gal is doing a good or goofy job, please drop me an email or post a comment with your contact information and time.

I have experience in international business, small businesses, partnerships, multi-state tax returns (they can get complicated) and anything else you can probably think of.

I also do business consulting and have ran several businesses (still running a few) myself so you are in good hands.

If you are looking for a day job, part time work, suggestions for saving money or investing, please check out my book, Practical Money Making, that is listed right after his paragraph in this very post. There are some great suggestions and ways to survive the Depression we are in.

Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement

Interested in any of my books? You may want to make a stop over here. Please click through to purchase my books and some other interesting items that actually ARE on sale.

Have you read my book, “Bad Tax Idea, Good Tax Idea“? Please order it today. The tips inside can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars! Tax planning should be done year round and not just two weeks into January or later.

Part of all the proceeds from the sales of that book go to Rett Syndrome research. One girl is born with Rett Syndrome worldwide every fifteen minutes. My daughter Arianna has Rett Syndrome and we are working to do all we can to make her life easier and find a cure in her lifetime. Boys born with the Rett gene generally die at birth.

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

 Make Small or Make Big?  It Doesn’t Matter Just Make Something

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When In Doubt, Gut It Out

Monday, July 13th, 2009

Question from a reader: ”Hello, Kim.  With this current economy, I am getting pretty disgusted and am asking myself if I should stay in business.  From a lifestyle point of view, the income I am making isn’t that great and I am ready for retirement.  Any thoughts?  Thanks.”

 My answer is if you don’t have any pressing health, family or other issues other than disgust, my motto is when in doubt, gut it out.   Your question was a unique enough one to get posted because I don’t generally get a lot of ones where people are making money and are asking if they should stop making it. 

 One of the first things I will ask is have you made sure that your lifestyle can adapt to the new changes in getting less money?  People always think they can live on less but one of the first things that happens when people are out of work is that they use all the free time they have and start spending.  Or they start to travel to all the places they wanted to go to.  Remember that travel costs money and if you are denying yourself the flow from the faucet of your business you may not be able to continue to live in the life style that you have grown accustomed to be use to.

 

Other questions you need to ask yourself are:

Is this feeling of disgust a temporary thing because of the economy or have the years, nay, decades finally increased their toll and you want to stop spinning your feet in the rat race?

How profitable in terms of income  are you in your business that you are willing to walk away from it?  Is there anything that you can do to maybe sell off a portion of it or have a relative help for awhile while you take a break?  If something is a success and you are tired from working on it, that isn’t always a good reason to want to dump it.

Have you ever taken a vacation from work?  If not, re-read my question above and seriously think about taking a break before you sever the cord with your income stream completely.  There are countless people who are basically workaholics and that is another serious problem with the Depression we are in.  These people have had to change gears and for some of them upon being laid off it has added years to their lives but they gotcha is that they still need to have money to take care of themselves and their families.  Mortgages generally don’t pay themselves unless you have paid for the emergency insurance thingies that they sell if you get laid off.

Do you have a list of hobbies or things that you have been dying to do?  If so, that is great and that can be something to keep you busy especially if you are a type A personality – you know, a go-go type of person who has to be doing something all the time.

Once an income stream is shut off, it may be very hard in this current economic Depression to get it back flowing.  You stated that your income that you aren’t making isn’t that great but it is still something and not knowing how much you have in retirement, I have no way of knowing how that is in relation to the rest of your finances.

For example, if you are making $100,000 a year with your business, that may not be great for somebody like Donald Trump or the late Michael Jackson because of the cash burn that they go through but that certainly sounds like good money (unless your expenses are $120,000 a year)  in relation to me.  That leads to the next few questions – and these are the same questions I would have anybody who is ready to retire or get rid of a business think about:

How are you in terms for saving and assets?  Are all your debts paid off or under control?  Are you able to hit your monthly bills or are they at a minimum and your savings and social security can cover it?

How are your loved ones, specifically your spouse or wife if you have one reacting to this?  Is she on board or will she want to tear your throat out after the two of you are home together for more than three days?  The general rule is that after three days with relatives or friends you need to separate for at least a few minutes to regain your center and sense of self.  The theory is also known as the Bad Fish Theory.  It means relationships, as loving and profitable as they are, tend to become stinky like bad halibut after three days so you need to go air yourself (or them) out.  When I took a vacation years ago with my sister to Italy we actually lasted five days in close proximity before we had to take a brief time out to get our batteries recharged.  Don’t get me wrong, some people and couples work super together 24/7.  I am not one of those people normally and most people I know aren’t either.

Now we come to some questions closer to the liquidation or distribution of your business:

Have you talked with a tax professional about what it would take to shut your gig down?

Is your business complicated enough where you still may need to plan a year or two in advance to cover license renewals, tax liability questions and any other issues that managed to keep you in the green for the years and in good graces with the IRS and any respective state, county or city taxing authorities?  A friend of mine discovered to his chagrin when he was trying to close his bagel store that because he was in a corporate entity he needed to keep the corporation open another year to completely insure that he clear his books and close out cleanly.  By staying open the extra year he was on the hook at the time for the California State minimum Corporation tax at that time and that was $800 among other expenses he was still having to deal with.

Make sure that you are going to recapture any depreciation that is outstanding and that you haven’t completely taken.  Remember all those great things in the business you were legally depreciating that helped keep you profitable by lowering your taxable liability down?  Well, you need to account for them when you shut down your business.  Have your accountant or tax guy/gal go through the items especially if you have a lot of items that you were depreciating.  You can expect the IRS and state taxing authorities to look through everything as well when you are closing your business.

Even though it goes without saying, you should tell your suppliers that you are closing the doors.  That is, unless you aren’t selling the business.  If you are selling the business, make sure that the contract states exactly and specifically what gets transferred over and what kind of support you will plan to do and for how long.  A lot of people (some of my tax clients in fact) have sold businesses and gone back on board as employees for their previous company because they still wanted to keep their hand in the business, wanted an income stream and realized that they would be bored in their retirement.

That is another point that I can’t stress enough.  Make sure you are busy.  Some people have tons of hobbies and there aren’t enough hours in the day.  The late television celebrity and former host of the Tonight Show, Steve Allen was a musician, writer and entertainer and he was still cranking out books even after he had “retired”.  Because of medical advances and overall good living conditions, you can expect to have a longer time alive so you will need more money to survive and need to keep busy for many more days.  As sweet as your grandchildren are, they may not want to be around you all the time as they get older and want to start dating..

The expectation for the future in terms of interest rates should be, based on what we have right now, that eventually, they will go up and that we should have some nasty inflation.  For the short term to intermediate term, my humble opinion is that for at least a few years, rates will be low because we have too much unemployment and any more slabs of concrete on the American worker’s back will pretty much bury our financial economy.  I wouldn’t count on high interest rates any more than a lot of millionaires who were living off their interest payments who are now finding that they are needing to dip into their principal to survive.

Make sure that you are adjusting your lifestyle to handle the loss of the income stream.  I cannot stress that enough.  Seriously.  I see too many clients who are back in the credit card trap or have maxed out their lines of credit in order to live a lifestyle that they can’t and shouldn’t be living because they felt that they were denying themselves their entire lives.  You can still live some of your dreams, just go about realizing them prudently.  Take some time and look for ways to cut costs and scale back some of the things that you wanted to do.  You can still scale the Alps or go paragliding through the Amazon but you probably don’t want to do both in the same year and you may want to space out the trips so that you can check your savings in between in case you end up needing the money.

Let us also remember to make sure that our medical insurance and any other policies are set up and in force before we stop working.  The worst thing that can happen is if, God Forbid, you get in an accident and are in trouble that you don’t have enough money in savings to cover your medical bills.  A stay alone in the hospital overnight can run into thousands of dollars and a lot more depending on the kinds of tests that need to be performed.  As we age we normally are not getting healthier and the chances are that sooner or later you may need a doctor visit on an emergency basis, if nothing else to take the shark off your foot from scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef.

Have I hammered home enough information and questions that you should be asking

Whatever you decide, I wish you the best and I am sure there are a lot of my readers who are envious of your situation.  Take care everybody and keep those questions coming in.  Remember that the search engines can get you an answer but it might not be the right one for you.

For those of you who have been curious as well, I am working on my next book.  It is coming along a lot slower than I would have hoped but I have been pretty busy with things lately. 

Remember my bees?  I still have some stragglers and I have moved the worm bins off to the side of the house, sprayed the bins and hopefully that will keep the few remaining stragglers (like 30 of them still) from hanging around.  There must be something in the air or the pollen that makes my property Bee Boulevard (no bee trucks allowed).

Getting back to the book.  This particular one, without going into too much detail yet is in response to readers who want me to get more into gaming again.  This time around I will touch a little on video gaming and board types of recreation.  In this current economy, people are turning to escapism more than ever to things that can completely make them forget their financial woes.  There is a resurgence in board games, home card games and of course, there hasn’t been a slow down in video games.  The lower end games and apps seem to be doing well (think iPod and iTouch downloads as well as the shareware versions of small, tightly written puzzle games and different twists on the FPS (first person shooter) games. 

For college age (or even high school age) readers, if you have the programming chops, you may want to get some development (dev) kits and try your hand at writing video games or apps.  It is a great way to make some passive income stream money and a fantastic calling card to have out there when you are looking for a job. 

I am still also on my manufacturing bandwagon.  If anybody has any manufacturing ideas or cash they want to get started in the Southern California area, please give me a call or drop me a note.  There is plenty of opportunity that is out here.  You don’t have to go to Asia or out of the United States to find places to make quality products inexpensively. 

 July 13, 2009

 Hey, don’t go anywhere yet.  Having some tax issues or tax questions?  Any problems with trying to make it through the financial Depression we are in that is making you depressed?  Please read on.

I am expanding  my practice and taking on new tax clients.  If you are interested in having somebody who is a successful businessman and tax professional with integrity review your returns discretely and see if your tax guy or gal is doing a good or goofy job, please drop me an email or post a comment with your contact information and time.

I have experience in international business, small businesses, partnerships, multi-state tax returns (they can get complicated) and anything else you can probably think of.

I also do business consulting and have ran several businesses (still running a few) myself so you are in good hands.

If you are looking for a day job, part time work, suggestions for saving money or investing, please check out my book, Practical Money Making, that is listed right after his paragraph in this very post. There are some great suggestions and ways to survive the Depression we are in.

Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement

Interested in any of my books? You may want to make a stop over here. Please click through to purchase my books and some other interesting items that actually ARE on sale.

Have you read my book, “Bad Tax Idea, Good Tax Idea“? Please order it today. The tips inside can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars! Tax planning should be done year round and not just two weeks into January or later.

Part of all the proceeds from the sales of that book go to Rett Syndrome research. One girl is born with Rett Syndrome worldwide every fifteen minutes. My daughter Arianna has Rett Syndrome and we are working to do all we can to make her life easier and find a cure in her lifetime. Boys born with the Rett gene generally die at birth.

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

When In Doubt, Gut It Out

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Posted in Business | 5 Comments »

My cosmetic business isn’t profitable Kim Help

Friday, June 5th, 2009

Question from a reader:”My cosmetic business isn’t profitable, Kim, can you help me? (The reader then proceeded to have information about the specifics of the business sent to me and granted me  permission to talk about some of it in the column.)”

My answer is that based on the information you provided me (and next time you get a bill for a consulting service since I went above and beyond the call of duty in order to get some great practical and profitable tips for readers). There isn’t a free lunch and you need to watch some of your goods to insure that you aren’t giving your customers a free dessert to boot as well.  These suggestions are to be taken with the understanding that I am not responsible for any specific business decisions that you make, are planning to make or anything else directly or indirectly with your business. 

The reasons you aren’t profitable are  because of the following items:

1.  The economy is on the skids and overall some of your sales are down just because people have been laid off or have moved out of town.

2.  A lot of your items need to be discounted further down or dumped entirely.  Tastes are pretty fickle these days and people want to latch onto the latest hot thing whether it is beauty cream, goat oil or whatever the heck people are marketing as “natural” to help their bodies.

3.  A lot of your “natural” products aren’t holding up to the litmus test of being natural when you actually read the ingredients.  There are a lot of chemicals in some of our products that I don’t want in the same state as me leave alone in my house or on my body.

4.  You aren’t using the Internet to get advertising out to support your mail order business.  I see that it is decent but you need to work a little harder at it to compete internationally with other suppliers of make up, etc. 

5.  If your target audience is getting to be more and more “the green consumer” you will need to dump anything and everything that isn’t part of your audience’s desires.  It just makes good business sense and can help you start realizing a profit (and be profitable) within three to six months if you do everything correctly.

6.  Cut down on your orders and if you buy pig-in-a-poke items, expect that you will need to first sell enough to make it worth your time to have one box per person sold in the United States.

7.  Tap into the Spanish and Asian markets.  Get your information translated into Spanish and get it out on the Internet.  The Latino culture supports (as do other cultures) the use of make-up and cosmetics.  It doesn’t see the use of tasteful cosmetics as something bad where some groups get really bent out of shape about things like make up being trashy (well some of the time).

8.  Renegotiate the terms of your lease to ones that are favorable to you even if only for a little bit.

9.  Dump the magazines you sell.  People can get subscriptions cheaper and see the online articles from some of those magazines. 

10.   Focus also more on anti-aging items.  Women (and men) love to look young.  Heck, our internal organs can be infested with disease and replaced with computer chips and batteries but if we look good on the outside, that is what counts, right?  Well, without sounding too shallow, remember that appearances sell (which is why you are in the cosmetics business, right?).

Before I forget, please be sure to write the Governor of your state and if you are in California, write to the State legislators to keep In Home Support Services from being cut.  Our elderly (who cannot take care of themselves) and our disabled need us and it is cheaper and a more profitable solution for the State of California to have the family take care of the person (or persons) until they can take care of themselves or are in state institutions because their caregivers cannot take care of them anymore.  Let us not rush that day any sooner than we have to, shall we?  The State of California would spend billions more taking care of special needs and the elderly in state run or paid for homes.

Anyways, for any readers who are interested I do in-depth consulting as well and my prices are reasonable.  If you have any quick and dirty questions that might be of interest to my readership, drop me a post, will you?

Is it the weekend yet?  I am burnt out as a I write this and am getting ready to go to sleep for the night.  Nighty night gang and thanks for sticking around! 

Take care and make money – somebody has to!

June 05 2009

If you are looking for a day job, part time work, suggestions for saving money or investing, please check out my book, Practical Money Making, that is listed right after his paragraph in this very post. There are some great suggestions and ways to survive the Depression we are in.

Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement

Interested in any of my books? You may want to make a stop over here. Please click through to purchase my books and some other interesting items that actually ARE on sale.

Have you read my book, “Bad Tax Idea, Good Tax Idea“? Please order it today. The tips inside can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars! Tax planning should be done year round and not just two weeks into January or later.

Part of all the proceeds from the sales of that book go to Rett Syndrome research. One girl is born with Rett Syndrome worldwide every fifteen minutes. My daughter Arianna has Rett Syndrome and we are working to do all we can to make her life easier and find a cure in her lifetime. Boys born with the Rett gene generally die at birth.

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

My cosmetic business isn’t profitable Kim Help

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Offer For Manufacturing Shoes and More

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008

I am interested in starting shoe manufacturing or anything else that we physically produce something of material value, any takers?

Open offer to anybody who has money and wants to invest.  I am willing to apply my expertise on business if somebody will put up the money to start a shoe manufacturing or any other type of business here in Los Angeles County.  The reason I am picking on shoes as a business is because my friend Debbie and I had a conversation where several things became apparent:

1.  Shoes that are made inexpensively these days break down in 6 months to a year instead of lasting 3 – 5 years (if cared for).

2.  Some of the dyes that are in shoes (as other garments) when manufactured overseas have come back and caused allergic reactions with people.  This is true with clothing and food in general these days.  One only has to read the news to see reports of products being defective or toxic.  People are starting to cut back on goods made in China or places they perceive that the worksmanship is poor at best or deadly in the worse case scenarios.

3.  People in America should start buying American made products where they can and American politicans and business people should do what they can to stop outsourcing. 

This is no different than what the American unions have been saying for years but the difference this time is we need to get a grassroots movement going because we have become too dependent on other nations for our goods and lately, our services.

Right now, resources are getting scarce and with the international community enjoying the benefits of capitalism, there is a strong incentive to make a profit by cutting corners.  To me that equates to shoddy workmanship.  Taking something simple as a shoe – it would be a great way to start a grassroots movement to get people to buy and start manufacturing American again.

We need our state and local governments to start introducing business incentives to make it worthwhile to hire local people at a living wage so they can start manufacturing.  I am willing to step up to the plate to help get a shoe manufacturing business going here in Los Angeles.

Think about it.  People spend a lot of time on their feet and how many times have you noticed when you buy cheap shoes that they behave exactly like what they are – cheap shoes.  The material falls apart, glue dissolves and your nice covered shoe looks like it is in a torn sandal.

If somebody is willing to bring cash to the table, I will work with them getting a shoe business going.  People realize at a certain point that you really get what you pay for.  If you are paying pennies for a pair of shoes, you get a pair of shoes that was made less than pennies.  How well do you think something like that will last?

The flip side is that you shouldn’t have to spend $120 for a pair of tennis shoes or designer sneakers and have them fall apart in under a year.  Back in the prehistoric days, you bought a pair of shoes (once your feet stopped growing) and they were expected to last a couple of years. 

Like a car.

Like a washing machine.

I am open to advising on other types of business as well.  If there is any other type of business that somebody with money wants to approach me with, if you are looking to make it in America, I am available for consulting.

There are people here who are good workers, can make quality products at a reasonable wage, and you can make a profitable return on your investment.

A win-win situation for these economic times!

  Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

Looking for investors to manufacture shoes or anything else.

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Refund Anticipation Loans

Sunday, November 16th, 2008

Question from a reader:”I think I understand the concept but what is a refund anticipation loan?”

My answer is that they are loans given from a lender, usually at a high interest rate and with fees with the collateral being your anticipated tax refund.  The lender controls the release of the money and you authorize him (with him being a company, generally a commercial bank) to collect your tax refund when it is paid by the Federal government.  State refund anticipation loans are also in the works. Many large tax preparation firms and small ones offer this service.

My thoughts on the matter are that if you can wait it is ALWAYS better to have the money go into your checking or savings account as a direct deposit.  If you are anticipating a refund, you can get it as a direct deposit generally in ten business days barring any money that you owe a government agency that is levied.

Each year, the IRS and state agencies try (or have gone on record as saying that they are trying)  harder to get the money back to you faster.

 

The refund anticipation loans (also known as RALS, etc) carry a high interest rate and fees in relation to the money that you are receiving.  If you absolutely, positively are dying for the cash or need it for an emergency then do what you have to do.  Generally you are paying a high premium for getting your money ten days earlier.  In some cases instant money is offered but the fees get higher still.  For large companies that offer this service it use to be profitable, in the current economic environment it still may be since they can always refuse to advance money to high risk customers. 

If you have waited this long for the money, my suggestion is to save yourself some of your money (because a refund is YOUR money being returned back to YOU) and wait the ten days till you get the money into your account.  If you don’t have a checking account, wait for the check.  Beware of debit cards that have high service charge or transaction fees.  You can have your refund money eaten away there just as quickly if you aren’t careful.

There is some talk that the ability to get refund anticipation loans may be outlawed by Congress in the next few years. Some people feel that the interest rates are too high and it promotes people getting and staying in debt.

Thanks for asking the question! 

   Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

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Amended Tax Returns Question

Saturday, November 15th, 2008

Question from a reader:”Can I amend back as many tax returns that I want to?”

My answer is: No.  You can only amend back three years for the Federal government.  Four for the state of California.  The extra year is to allow for catch up, I suppose.  If the IRS or any state authority asks for more years, you obviously have to provide the return for whatever it is they are looking for.  If software isn’t available, you need to get copies of the forms for the specific years and file manually.  If you were expecting a refund, you need to refresh yourself with the rules for amended returns and geting a refund. The place to start for looking for older forms would be the irs website and after that, search engines.  If you can find old copies of the tax software you might try and get them from vendors but please make sure they are the finalized forms.  You won’t be able to have anything to compare them to so double check that any software sources for forms is the most recent for that year.

Form 1040X must be filed within 3 years from the date of your original return or within 2 years from the date you paid the tax, whichever is later.  If you are looking to get a refund from five years ago and you have exceeded the time limit, you won’t get your refund.  There are situations as well that you may be capped on the amount of the refund that you will be getting despite the fact that you at the time may have been entitled to more cash. 

For now, amended tax returns need to be sent by mail and signed manually.  In a few years they may be electronic but we are concerned about the present now.  That means that you may need to wait several months as of the writing of this blog before you can get any refunds from an amended return.

Are amended returns audited more or less than normal returns?  I don’t think so but they are reviewed and received by people so pay attention to details.  Take your time or have your tax professional double check everything before you send in your amended return.  I just taught my tax students how to do amended returns and everybody – and I mean everybody – makes mistakes at least the first time they try to do an amended return.

If you are doing your own using tax software be careful and double check everything for resonableness.  Make sure that you include changes for everything and watch for the cascade affect where adding or subtracting income or dependents changes credits, deductions and the overall complextion of your return – you may go from a refund to an amount due – or vice versa.

The important thing is to be accurate and thorough. So, if there are any new schedules or changes to existing ones, make sure that they are included in the amended return package.  The IRS doesn’t want to see every form unless they ask for it. 

Double check with your state regulations as well.

When you are writing your explanations, go into detail.  The IRS is training a lot of new hires and they get OTJ-On The Job Training.  That means they give them the amended returns to review and look for errors.  Explain clearly what was amended so there will be no reason for the return to get kicked back to you.

Don’t balk if you discover that you need to amend a tax return and that there is an amount due.  Take care of it as soon as possible and pay any penalties that may need to be taken care of.  It is better if you catch the error than the taxing authority.  If the error is a large one they will catch it sooner or later.

I could post a picture of a form 1040X but since it is close to the weekend and we are all burnt out from roller coaster finanial news I will show you something to take your mind off of taxes.   If all goes well with your amended return you (and in the case of our photo, your partner)  will be happier.  How much happier?  A LOT happier! 

 

 Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement

 

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

 

Amending tax returns can be profitable or costly but they still should be done if you need to do them .

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profitable

Friday, November 14th, 2008

My book of my first fifty or so blogs is out.  If you enjoy my whimsical and informative posts about starting your own business, dealing with savings, dealing with our current recession/depression, coping with special needs situations, please check out my book. Priced affordably with a no-frills, basic money-saving cover for these rough economic times, the information inside is fun, informative and hopefully will save you money and your sanity. By the way, the book is white on white and that is why the green letters would just kind of float here on the page – that is why the way to reach it is by the text :) .

 
profitable

 

The particulars:
Paperback: 108 pages
Publisher: Kim Greenblatt
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1606220020
ISBN-13: 978-1606220023

 

Want something else to sweeten the deal? 

Part of the proceeds of all my sales go to research for finding a cure for Rett Syndrome.  Rett Syndrome affects a girl born every fifteen minutes.  Boys born with the Rett gene die at birth. In these trying economic times, research for Rett Syndrome has been tough because of competition for money from other projects. Your purchase of this or any of my books will help funding to improve the quality of life for millions of people.

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

The profitable book culled from the great blog is out!

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Jury Duty and Jury Nullification

Friday, November 14th, 2008

I was called to serve for jury duty for the Van Nuys Court.  As a mediator and arbitrator I realize that it is part of my civic responsibility to be available to help the court system make fair and equitable decisions.  As a businessman trying to be profitable in a recession/depression I am loathe to do anything that isn’t paying a decent wage and chews up a lot of my time.  Well, of course, except writing for you for free.  Er, and taking care of my family, helping my friends and whatever else comes up. 

 

 

Up until 2001 here in California, if you were on a jury, you could, despite a judge’s instructions,  vote the way you felt, even if it went against what you were instructed to steer clear of or take into account.  If a judge thinks that you are going to try and nullify his instructions, he has the power to remove you from a jury.  This has turned into an avenue for getting out of jury duty or at the very least to make it interesting.  The purpose of jury nullification was to make the people the fourth branch of government. Doesn’t that sound cool and important?  The reality in California is that they don’t want you to come up with your own conclusions and to be fair, I don’t blame them.  Look at the O.J. Simpson criminal trial from a decade ago.

Without going into the details (I read them and they are worthy of several blogs),  the decision for the California ruling was from a  1995 conviction of Arasheik W. Williams by a Santa Clara jury on charges of, false imprisonment, and assault and statutory assault to a minor.  The kicker was that the Mr. William’s attorney told the jurors “a jury may, at times, afford a higher justice by refusing to enforce harsh laws.”

The jury foreman deep into the deliberations reported to the judge that juror James Kelly refused to discuss the statutory charge because “he believes the law is wrong.”

Kelly told Judge Paul Teilh he couldn’t consider the charge: “I simply cannot see staining a man, a young man, for the rest of his life for what I believe to be the wrong reason.”

Normally  under the American legal system, juries need not explain how they arrived at their verdicts.  Since the ruling, judges can, and do, remove jurors who make it known they will practice nullification.

In the Williams case, the judge removed Kelly from the jury, saying he had violated his oath of service that required the juror to follow the judge’s instructions.  The jury, with an alternate in place, voted the next day to convict Williams, who was later, sentenced to six years in prison.

I want to take care of my civic requirement but at the same time I need to be working.  My question is how to approach this if I get put on a panel for a jury.  It could very well be that the the judge just seats us and that is that.  If we have voir dire, see/say, where the attorneys get to ask us specific questions, if it is an interesting and short case and I feel I will be adding an unbiased opinion, I will do what I can to stay on the jury. Arianna may have something coming up as well and I will have to take that into consideration.

If it is something that raises my hackles, I may end up getting removed by virtue of my bias.  Regular readers know that I don’t suffer ignorance or stupidity very well.  

The risk is that I don’t want to get the ire of the judge so that he or she “sends a message” not to mess around.  I generally am on my best behaviour because in a courtroom, the judge’s decision is law.

Literally.  If you aren’t aware of it, the judge IS the law in his or her court.  A reminder to that if you go to jury duty, make sure that you dress business professional to show respect for the court. Security measures, in case you weren’t aware, are similar to the airport so leave pocket knives and anything that might be construed as a weapon at home.  Also, don’t ignore a summons to appear.  You will have a bench warrant issued for your arrest.

More as this develops.

UPDATE:  I was put on a panel and then dismissed.   I think it was because of my friendships with law enforcement people and my feelings on certain things.  The jury nullifcation point was brought up once and the judge said one of the questions that he had for me wasn’t it.  I am not so sure but that was that.

The short story is back to business and good luck and good thoughts to people who are in the court system. As lumpy as the system is, it is still a pretty good system and there seemed to be enough potential jurors there who really wanted to serve to hopefully render a fair verdict. My best to everybody who works at the Van Nuys courts!

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

 

Talking about Jury Duty and Jury Nullification

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