Comparing Europe to the US is apples to oranges; different approaches to the economy, different tax structures, and different standards of living. It's easy to say wages and such are 'stagnant'; but words have meaning, and another valid word would be 'comparable' or 'similar' to the past. Just looking at say, the minimum wage - while it's low, it's pretty much exactly what it was in 1967 in adjusted dollars....in 1967 it was $1.00 an hour, today it's $7.25 - adjusted for inflation, the $1.00 an hour is equivalent to $6.87 today, so minimum wage is slightly higher today than it was in 1967. Expectations have changed, to me that's clear - in 1967 the range of gadgets, services and things people wanted was much less than today. TV was free, cable costs money; homes had one TV, not 2+, computer games were non-existent; a landline was the only option, cell phones cost money; there was no public internet, today access costs money; homes didn't have computers, they cost money; credit cards were rare, household debt even moreso, so "carrying cost" to a household was lower as significantly fewer financed and paid interest on loans and debt, they paid cash. This begs the question, when expectations exceed ability, is that the fault of those who have higher incomes? I'm not suggesting that the fact that there are more households making less isn't an issue, it is; but the fact remains that one isn't within a caste in the US and while it's not easy to do better, it's certainly not impossible, in fact, it's probable - even the stats you posted support that position.

Small businesses are the engine of our economy. As I noted on another thread, more than half the US GDP is from small businesses (<500 employees) and accounts for more than half the employment in the US. Companies with less than 20 employees account for 20% of all US employment, if you look at the data, half of small companies employ less than 100 employees; 9-million of them in the US, employing 45-million people.

Interestingly, "42% of children born to parents in the bottom fifth of the income distribution ("quintile") remain in the bottom, while 39% born to parents in the top fifth remain at the top." Source: Isaacs, Julia B. (November 2007). "Economic Mobility of Families Across Generations". Brookings Institution. http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2007/11_generations_isaacs.aspx Stated another way: 68% of children born in the bottom fifth move up and do better (majority) 61% of children born in the top fifth move down and do worse (majority) One has a greater chance, statistically, of improving their lot compared to those born with the advantage of being born in a higher income family. ---------------- In another paper (Hertz, Tom (26 April 2006). Understanding Mobility in America. Washington, D.C.: Center for American Progress), it was noted that those born to wealthy families, 78% would not stay in the top 5%; of those born in the second to fourth quintiles, 57% stayed within their quintile born, with 22% moving up. In one more (Income Mobility in the U.S. from 1996 to 2005. Department of the Treasury. 13 November 2007), it was noted that "There was considerable income mobility of individuals [within a single generation] in the U.S. economy during the 1996 through 2005 period as over half of taxpayers moved to a different income quintile over this period."

In my life, I've started 5, sold 3; one failed, three grew to the point where selling made sense, one I still keep idling, no income for it, but it's there when I'm ready to resume doing something outside the house (SAHM). Since 15, there have been only three times I worked for someone else as an employee, and two of those was for about a year and were to gain experience I needed, one was for three years to pay my way through college while working full-time. My dad was blue-collar, mom SAH, and while we were middle class, we weren't, by any stretch of the imagination, wealthy. We lived in a very rural community about an hour outside NYC. My parents didn't pay for my education, nor did they fund any of my business ventures. DH has his own practice; he grew up poor in NYC, dad a teacher, mom SAH; they too didn't have the money to send him to college, let alone finance his opening an office. He's worked in both academic and private practice before buying the practice he has now, financed with our savings and loans, purchased when the doc he worked for retired. In my family, about 30% of the family (aunts, uncles, cousins) owns and operates their own businesses; some would call us outliers, but I think it's really more the culture of our family dynamic that expresses as entrepreneurship - none of these businesses were started by family funding them. Even now, the younger generation is repeating, yet no one is jumping to give them money to start, probably because we understand why it's important (to us) that they figure it out for themselves. DH's family, only one cousin of his owns his own business too; he was working for a company and the owners were retiring, he bought it with another employee in partnership and has grown it and is now in a position to sell it to a bigger company, which he and his partner are seriously considering as his partner wants to retire now too, he's trying to decide what he'll do next before they sell. No one financed his cousin to buy the company, he and his partner did that on their own, with savings and loans.

Look at small businesses in the US - how many are there and how many were started by uber-wealthy people? In the US more than half the GDP is from small businesses (<500 employees) and accounts for more than half the employment in the US. Someone is opening these businesses and running them. Companies with less than 20 employees account for 20% of all US employment, if you look at the data, half of small companies employ less than 100 employees; 9-million of them in the US, employing 45-million people. If you include less than 101-500 employee firms, that's then 9.3 million employing 60-million people. So the vast majority employed by small business are within companies with 1-99 employees. Again, someone is starting these businesses and running them. Are they all wealthy at the start? I, for one, have not stated all you need is hard work, you also need the the wherewithall to do it too, a plan, goals and actions matter. Sam Walton (and I am certainly not a fan of Wal-Mart) grew up dirt poor in Missouri and founded WalMart; Colin Powell grew up in poverty in Harlem, and ascended to Secretary of State of the US; Joe Lacob, majority owned of NBA franchise grew up poor, yet turned each success he found into something bigger along the way; Ron Bowman grew up poor, put himself through school and started fixing up houses, now he owns commercial space he built himself and leases out and continues in the construction business (Bowman Construction); there are millions of examples in the US of individuals breaking free of circumstance and starting something on their own - some grow to be huge businesses (Walmart), others remain smaller, but hugely successful (Bowman Construction). One can focus on all the reasons why outliers like Gates or Buffet don't count, but that doesn't account for the millions who aren't the outliers who have succeed in business and life, who started with little to no advantage whatsoever, yet managed to make it happen, whether their business grows to be big or it stays smaller, yet successful. With millions of small businesses in the US, someone is doing it and they're not all wealthy and privileged before they started.

100g raw grass-fed beef, there's 12.7g of fat, of which 5.3g are saturated fat, 4.8g are MUFA and the remaining 0.5g is PUFA. 100g of conventional grain-finished beef (all cattle start grass-fed), there's 15g of fat, of which 5.8g is saturated, 6.5g is MUFA, and 0.4g is PUFA. The PUFA is where the o-3 and o-6 is, the difference between the two is negligible. At the end of the day, 1/10th of a gram difference isn't going to matter, really! The difference in omega-3 is even less (since both o-3 and o-6 is within the PUFA grams), it just isn't big enough to matter. I think what matters more, at least for me, is that the health of the cow matters; if it needs antibiotics to consume a diet it isn't physiologically designed to eat, that's a problem; if it needs growth stimulants to make it bigger, that's a problem.

Anyone can do it with the idea and gumption to do it. That is if they have it in them to do it, some just don't. If that something isn't in them, that doesn't make them less important, valuable or worthy, it just means they'll be the ones hired and not doing the launch of the company. Not everyone can be the captain, someone has to row the boat too. There is nothing wrong with that; but the idea that one is just stuck and CAN'T change things isn't what I've seen throughout my life and in my experience. It's one of those 'the bigger they are, the harder they fall' - historically that's what happens, falling and/or totally failing if the company doesn't adapt to changes, and changes are ALWAYS happening, especially disruptive technologies and/or innovations. Think back to the railroad barons, they had their business model and profits shattered when the automobile became available to the public at large, outside urban areas. The telephone displaced telegraphy. Semiconductors displaced vacuum tubes. The television disrupted radio. The iPod killed the Walkman, which disrupted cassettes, which disrupted 8-track tapes. The CD displaced 3.5-inch floppies, which replaced 5.25 floppies, which replaced 8-inch floppies. DVD's have replaced VHS, which totally displaced BETA, which should have taken the lead, but Sony misjudged consumer needs and VHS took the lead. LED will replace light bulbs, just as the LCD replaced the CRT; I see the CFL as an interim technology, not the one that is going to win the marketshare at the end of the day. The market for a disruptive technology and/or innovation is always narrow to begin, the threat to the existing entities in the space appears minor, and that's how the small guy and/or the company with less market share gets going, they're ignored and dismissed as no threat to the status quo....but they are, and history keeps repeating itself, so those giants today will tomorrow have their comeuppance, or they'll buy the little guy out and he'll make money in the process, or they'll figure out something even better. It's a cycle and it's always cycling in the marketplace. As I noted, the opportunity is there for anyone; they need it in them too, that chuztpah makes the difference, not the money. Ideas alone don't do it, whatever it is must be an unmet need, if there isn't a need, there isn't a market, there isn't a profit, there is no point to do it. A person needs a level of chutzpah and desire to do it too, succeeding isn't merely luck, it take setting goals and complete action steps to achieve it, it takes work. Whether a job is fair is in the eye of the beholder really. To me, I've never considered a job that requires me to breach my ethics to be acceptable, others feel differently and will do it if the reward to them exceeds their discomfort level.

By point of law in the US, taxes cannot be levied at a particular industry exclusively, but to all businesses, as spelled out in the Uniformity clause of our constitution, "but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States." If the corporate tax rate is 35% on profits, then it's 35% for all corporations. If paying insurance premiums is deductible for large corporations, it's deductible for small businesses. Those are examples of government policy interfering in the market; sort of a picking the winners and losers if you will, with the unintended (or maybe not) consequence of advantages bestowed on one class of corporation, but not those smaller ones. That corporations use these advantages isn't immoral, it's a matter of regulatory environment that's favorable, change that and the dynamic changes, maybe for the better, maybe for the worse. Agreed.

Don't mind my :lol:, but both of your examples - Starbucks and Microsoft - were open by entrepreneurs with little more than their gumption. Starbucks is a pretty cool story - the three founders opened in 1971 because they were inspired by Alfred Peet's setup (Peet's Coffee), and started with one small shop, actually purchasing their beans initially from Peet's....they went on to buy Peet's Coffee, the company, after 13 years of being open. That was how they expanded. By 1988 the founders sold the company; the new owners re-branded their shops to Starbucks, more expansion. Then it IPO'ed in 1992 with over 150 shops open. If that's not a start-from-the-ground up with basic capital from three people to do it, I don't know what is. Microsoft was a total by-the-seat-of-their-pants venture with Bill Gates and Paul Allen...after bragging they had a BASIC Interpreter, they wound up with an appointment at MITS, to show it to them.....and had to develop it, on the fly, to be able to show it worked - it did and that's how Microsoft was born, through a distribution agreement between them and MITS. I'm not a fan of Bill Gates, but geez, he flew by the seat of his pants and it worked for him. To start a company one doesn't need huge capital. Talk to a venture capitalist or an angel investor, while they'll invest big bucks often, they're more likely to invest in smaller than larger, it's less risk with a bigger payoff historically when the smaller has the capacity to grow and grow. Starting big is one of the biggest mistakes many make.

Make a list of all you need done, room by room, for someone to follow....interview with the list and do a walk-through with them. That should do it.

My housekeeper has the same thing happening a lot - cancellations for another day or time, or they're away. It is part of running your own business. I don't pay FICA for my housekeeper, she's running a business and fully knows that's on her, she started the business, entered into a contract (verbal or written) with you and understands when she quotes a price to you to do the cleaning, she's got FICA employer-match to pay as her cost of self-employment! When you go to eat out, do you tip + leave FICA? When you go to the doctor, do you pay + pay FICA he'll pay for his salary and his staff's? Nope, it's the cost of doing business and factored into rates/fees already.

I'm curious, how do you get B12?

Before building anything, you do need to understand how an "improvement" on what is land-taxed now changes with a house on it. It may be a good idea to do it, but you may find that if you add a house to, say the 45-acres, your taxes go through the roof, so you might want to parcel it first, into smaller plats, then build. Exchanging reduced rent for work can work well, but you really want to make sure you have a lease nonetheless, with terms clearly specified. For example, if the guy is going to mow, you need to have in the lease how often that needs to be, what months of the year, etc., otherwise his idea of when it needs to happen versus your idea of when it needs to be done may not be on the same page and lead to disagreement between you. Finishing your building to rent, might be a good idea. How far from your current residence is it? How will doing that affect your privacy?

A ship can only have one Captain. You're the Captain. Starting the group was and is your baby, your ship. It's great to have a second in command, third and forth, but at the end of the day, you, as Captain, must lead. And that means, you're the one who decides where your group is going now and in the future! If your "crew" doesn't share your vision, then you need a new crew who does. Sit down with everyone and discuss this as a group - be kind and gentle in your words, but also firm with what you want to see in the future. They will all either do it or not, some may leave, that's okay, replace them with people who share your vision and aren't scaring off others!

I think it's more of a chicken-and-egg type thing. In the 80's as we went through a major recession, employees were at the mercy of employers, the unemployment rate was high, jobs available low, so companies had more leverage to pay less and/or not provide a wide array of benefits, or both. But then that flipped.... In the 90's leading into the dot.com bust, companies were at the mercy of employees and those looking for a job. Insane compensation and benefits were routine to attract and retain employees, until the bubble burst because it was unsustainable. It wasn't just within the IT sector either, across many industries the effect of an employee-market was felt, so it was good for employees more than employers. Now we're in an economy where both employers and employees feel like their at each others mercy. While there are large numbers unemployed, there are also lots of companies that are struggling to meet payroll, provide benefits and find and keep good employees. I've lived through 3 decades of business cycles so far and this is, by far, the worst I've seen and the craziest for both employees and employers. Neither really knows what's coming down the pike - employers are clueless about what's going to happen in the next year or so for taxes (and yes, that does affect business decisions), employees have no clue where wages are going, what's going to happen with health insurance reforms, or if they'll have a job if their company closes. It's easy to point fingers at the big-bad-evil corporations, but they're really just a bunch of people working, whether it's the CEO or the janitor, they're doing a job. And, they're just like small business owners, just a lot bigger....except the small businesses are the engine of our economy and with all the talk and planning about how to get the big guys, well, the little guys are targeted too. We take the same exact deductions on our taxes as the larger corporations do - the media calls those "deductions" for small business and "subsidies" or "corporate welfare" for corporations. It's really no different than any of us taking deductions on our 1040's - they are deductions the legislative branch of our government decided to pass. To be angry at an individual or a small business or a large multinational for taking legal deductions they're allowed under the law is not where anger needs to be directed, why were the laws passed? Who passed them? Why were they passed? Who besides the larger corporation benefits? Who doesn't? Few here who qualify for tax credits and other incentives to lower your tax burden would willingly give them up, right? Yet they are the same thing as a tax credit or incentive for a small business or large corporation! Many are okay with deducting the mortgage, but not okay with a business deducting their rental/mortgage payments (that is corporate welfare) - many are okay with deducting your personal property taxes paid each year, but consider that a "subsidy" when a company takes the same exact deduction for its property tax? For the most part, for all the demonization of large corporations, it doesn't seem to be affecting their bottom-line, people are still shopping them, using their products, buying their stocks, or whatever. How will increasing taxes on corporations (and by extension, small businesses) solve our economic problems? What that is going to do is close a lot of businesses or new ones will simply never open.

Believe it or not, I don't believe capital is the real problem for someone looking to start a business. Nope. The only things you need, really, is identification of the unmet need and a solid business plan. You'll find the money or it will find you if you have the right idea and have identified the unmet need. That's what innovation is, doing something better or doing something no one else is doing. Now that doesn't mean it'll just happen - one has to make it happen, but many simply have no idea how to find the money or who to seek out for the money - that is a problem, but the money is really out there if you know where to look, who to talk to and how to pitch your concept. And I say that from experience. I've done just that a number of times in my life at this point in time, including times when all I had was my idea, no capital to use to start. All the capital in the world can't make a bad idea good, but even no capital in-hand will not, in the long-run stop a good idea from coming to life. If the person who first figured it out doesn't find the money to do it (and that's often the problem), someone else will come along and recognize the same unmet need and do it themself.

Well there is always that comfort that a $1,00,000+ bonus recipient had to pay 35% in federal taxes on it and whatever their state and local taxes are too!

My housekeeper's initial rate was based on how long she estimated it would take to clean the house, top to bottom, each week. We then discussed how much it would be if she did just the main floor, or if she did the main + upper or lower. I wanted to know each scenario because I don't always need it all done every time. Whole house (5,500 SF) = $125 Main floor + upper or lower = $100 My upper is only 1000SF, my lower is 2,200SF - but the upper is more complicated than the lower level is, even though it's much, much bigger. Main only (2,300SF) = $75 In any given week, she gets the same whether she takes 4 hours or she takes 8+ hours, or somewhere in between and how long it takes varies each week since I do whole house in weeks where we're having company come and then the week after they're gone, the upper or lower alternating when it's just us for weeks on end, and just the main floor when we're away on vacation and no one is here, or just DH is, but he's at work more than here, so no real messes to worry about. I don't think it's just size that matters, but what it takes to get even a smaller space cleaned. In our case, the lower level is very easy to do, even though it's big - it's vacuuming and dusting and the bathroom down there since it's a rec room, playroom and bathroom to do. Upstairs on the other hand, while much smaller in size, has three bedrooms to make beds, a bathroom that needs towel changes and cleaning, in addition to the vacuuming, and dusting of more furniture and other things. So for time, the upper level and lower are comparable for time to get done, even though one level is twice the size of the other.

Yes, we're one of them. My comment was based on how few are paying federal income tax these days, at incomes where they can; that tax credits often will take a respectable income down to next to nothing and that higher earners, including business owners, often do not qualify for the same tax credits.

She's entered into a contract with the insurance company and agreed to accept an amount for her services to any of their policy holders. THAT is her agreed to rate with the insurance company for which you have a policy that you've entered into contract with to reimburse doctors/healthcare providers you see. So no, you should not compensate above that rate, nor should you feel you should. If she is unhappy with her reimbursement rate, she needs to take that up in her contracts - either renegotiate or drop them.

CCD once a week, 1.5-hour Review of CCD material, once a week, 30-min Bible story read aloud, once a week, 15-30 min

Unless you know for sure the OB's call schedule with the hospital and that she is indeed on call, you could wind up with anyone there if it's not her....and if it is her and you don't deliver before her end of shift, she may not be able to stay with you like she might/can in the hospital she normally admits through. Just something to think about.

2-hours is a long practice time for under 12 swimmers - too much IMO. DS7 started swim team this summer at our local club, enjoyed it a lot and so he joined the regional competitive swim team. The two are night and day for what they do in practice and what's expected from the swimmers. Under 10's practice at least two days a week (4 days are offered) for an hour, they can go 2-3-or-4 days, it's up to them, the expectation is two days a week though. Practice is an hour and the coaches teach the strokes as part of practice, so to join, DS had to show he could swim the length of the pool, then show what strokes he could do (he could do all four) so the coach could see where he was strong and where he needed work to place him appropriately with a group within his age group. The team has four home meets a year and ten away meets, under 10's are not expected to swim all meets, qualify for regionals or nationals - they're certainly invited and encouraged, but at that age, the coaches focus more on skill and enjoyment over the competitive in competitive swim team. We have gone to two away meets this year and DS swam in one of two home meets so far. He'll do the next home meet and we'll wait again until fall for away meets since he's going to be doing the local club team this summer again, so that means weekly meets for eight weeks, plenty of swimming for him!

Summer squash works a bit better than zucchini for lasagna; Spaghetti Squash is great as a sub for spaghetti!

I do agree somewhat - I haven't counted anything for years, but I also now know what, oh a cup of broccoli looks like on my plate, so I can guess pretty well where my carb intake is on any given day if I'm paying attention; mostly, I don't pay attention and just eat what I know is lower carb and have no issues. That said, I do think initially, if one is changing their dietary habits, it may be a good idea to measure things as you're adding something in or taking something out....it helps to be able to visualize what things look like over time as you swap things in and out and try different combos of foods. And honestly, I don't think it's terribly difficult to figure out how much more 5g a day is if that's what you want to do. Often it's helpful because it does change things up from the routine, same old same old. For example, if someone is a couple of weeks into the diet and had salad each night with dinner, they may like the idea that instead of the salad, they can now have some melon and prosciutto as their appetizer instead, or that instead of eggs, bacon and sliced tomatoes for breakfast, they'll try a smoothie with some berries and plain full-fat yogurt and see how that goes.