Still, I am seeing light at the end of the tunnel … and I pray it is not a train.  I am seeing clients  who are starting to shift from a bunker mentality into cautious planning mode.  They are hiring (or at least thinking about it), starting to spend money, even anticipating growth in 2011. 

Do not get me wrong.  It is still tough, but more like being hit by a mini-van rather than a semi.  For example, according to the latest survey by Small Business Watch:  “The percentage of small business owners rating the current economy as good or excellent was 12 percent in May, compared to 13 percent in April.  The April and May ratings on the current state of the economy are the highest since June 2008.  Thirty-two percent rate the economy as fair in May, while 56 percent still think it’s poor.”

Then there is get-away time, which I believe is a key indicator for SBOs.  I know that when I am in a financial bind, I postpone vacations and weekends.

Well, over the last couple of years, with the economy in the toilet, a lot of other business owners did the same thing.  According to a summary from that same SBW survey: “Although the recession forced more than half of small business owners to postpone or cancel their vacations during the past two years, a few more are considering some time off this year: 51 percent of small business owners said in May that the economy forced them to cancel or postpone vacations or time off, down from 58 percent last year.  

So, no, it is not great news.  But there are signs of hope.  So, keep on working hard, try to make money, and, yes, even have fun.  Good luck!

• People who work on Wall Street are not evil!
• People are naturally and inherently self-focused, whether in business or in government!  (This is a good thing.)
• People with money are not evil!
• People who work hard to make a lot of money are not evil … even if they do not want to share it with you or me!
• On any given day, government needs more regulation than does business.
• In what’s left of this country, people who are willing to work 16 hour days, six days a week, can eventually make lots of money!  (People who sit on their butts will not.  Any questions?)
• Insurance companies are not greedy!  (I know hundreds of men and women in the insurance industry, and all but two of the ones I know are either downright good or at least borderline nice.)
• Capitalism is not about greed, but about opportunity for people to live and direct their own lives!  (If they make lots of money doing it, good for them.)
• Capitalism does not exploit people!  (It creates opportunity … unlike overbearing governments.)
• Wal-mart does a damn good job!  (It creates jobs and markets for hundreds of thousands of people who might otherwise be picking through trash heaps for a living.)
• There’s nothing wrong with greed!  (Gasp!)
• If greed were illegal, most of Congress would be in jail. 
• Businesses do not  have moral responsibilities to do anything other than not break the law!  (Gasp again!) 
• The purpose of a business is to make a profit!  (Ergo, being accused of being in business to make a profit is not a crime.  Honest.)
• Capitalists make money when they provide goods and services that people want and for prices they are willing to pay.  (Hurray!)
• Capitalists lose money and go broke when they fail to provide goods and services that people want and for prices they are willing to pay. (Tough … but there’s always next year!)
• The purpose of a business is not to provide jobs, but to make a profit!  (Making a profit, however, will create jobs in the long run.)
• It is very, very hard to start, build and keep a business successful!  (People who do it should be admired, not insulted.)
• The government hasn’t a clue how to run a business.
• Capitalism creates wealth!  (Countries with the freest economies are the wealthiest.)
• Socialism destroys wealth!  (How long can we tax “only” the rich people before we have no rich people?)
• Government needs to stay out of business … and business needs to stop looking to government for money! 
• Government cannot “create” competition!  (However, it can get out of the way, even-handedly enforcing contracts and other laws, and thereby enable businesses to compete … and compete they will.)
• When a business does make a profit, that is what creates jobs, generates tax revenue, enables people to buy and stay in their homes, donate to charities, and — yes, it’s true — afford health care!  (Making sense yet?) 
• Accusing banks of not wanting to lend money is stupid!  (That’s what they do, so if they are reluctant to lend money, that means the risks are too high.)
• The role of the government is NOT to run businesses, but instead to assure that rule of law allows others (as in business people) to run their own businesses! 
• It is a disgrace to hear the President of the United States of America spewing out hatred – insulting and berating entire industries and businesses in this country.  

As a nation, we face immediate challenges, both of which threaten to destroy our capitalistic system if we let them:

• Cap-and-Trade, that rip-off by a government bent on rewarding its political favorites by creating a scarce new commodity, “carbon credits,” making businesses buy it, but forcing the poor pay to for it with the regressive taxation of gasoline and electricity.
• ObamaCare, the Federal takeover of the medical industry, which will hand medical decisions over to government bureaucrats, doing away with the privacy of medical data and our right to select our own medical insurance and choose our own doctors.

But what will break this country is:

• The push by leaders of both parties to legalize 15,000,000 to 30,000,000 illegal aliens and hand them medical insurance. Even the government concedes that few illegals will benefit, and that we’ll be forking over $60,000 a year for each one we do manage to help. That’s four or five-times more than anyone is spending now!

If we don’t push back, the nation will soon be financially bankrupt, culturally criminalized, and linguistically ruined; eventually, our borders will be gone, our culture destroyed, and our language all-but forgotten.

What Can We Do?

It’s very simple, yet very difficult. We must say “No!” to further government takeovers and “No!” to creeping socialism.

Specifically, we must vote politicians who support those measures out of office, and elect people who know how to balance a budget, and who will work to remove those arrogant representatives of special privilege who have been trading political service for personal gain, and ending up millionaires at our expense. In short, we need people who understand free enterprise, who reject the socialist agenda, and who are pro-America!

I hope that a few of you care as much as I do about rejecting the creep of socialism in this country and saving the democratic republic our forefathers gave us, remembering Benjamin Franklin’s famous admonition:  “If you can keep it!”

That’s what I’m going to do. Who will join me?

John Mangin, a businessman, political activist and one-time candidate for office, is the American United Life General Agent is Tampa, FL.