Grrrr.... "Why don't the unemployed just start their own businesses?" Sick of this argument!

Hello and Happy Thanksgiving,

I don't know how many of you remember or have seen Products that were made in America in the early 1900's.

They were made to Last. Built Indestructible. Almost impossible to break. Example no plug for G.E. But they

made a Desktop electric oscillating fan Solid Construction Built to last. And that's just one of many that were

Solid and almost impossible to break and we all know that after that era everything was Plastic Garbage .

Well those Solid Products are now collectors items and well sought for because of their dependability.

I think This Country was to start making products like that again they would Sell No Problem, Why? We

All want a product to last longer than they do now Solid, Strong, Tough. Yes it will cost more but worth the

Money. Everyone wants Value not Crap. Just a Thought I wanted to share.

OK I will stick to the argument.. you are RIGHT people can start their own businesses. I will personally help anyone that needs a boot up.. FREE ....PM me with your requests...REALLY this is true PLEASE contact me I have lots of ideas for working service jobs on your own in the city.. read this If I can do it, you can too.

I saw what was happening to country in 2007, in 2008 was making good money in insurance business
(6 figure income) the company where I worked shutdown... Since I am a REAL entrapreneure and have owned 8 or more of my own companies, we had moved to the country, sold our city townhome, our Disney vacation spot timeshare.(wish I still had it) and found myself in my dream home in the country..

problem: no jobs, not enough money saved, sold expensive suv. economy crashed, become disabled due to health I have PPS (Post Polio Syndrome) and suffer the effects of child hood polio, (pain, fatigue,weak legs and arms, need cain to walk)

What does a disabled grandmother in the country with no transporation do? start a chicken farm of course! I now have a very thriving chicken farm a real good income, and its working.. how? through a cash only and barter system.. I now am selling chickens faster than I can grow them (I sell/barter 400 chickens per MONTH) I know the business is booming because people everywhere are scared of the economy. I barter for food, tools, services, clothers, appliances, furniture.. My 25 year old daughter had her whole house furnished with my barter trades from chickens!

(family promise: when I die, my family is engraving, "I traded chickens for that" on my tombstone because I say it about everything! LOL)

But there are jobs in the city too! you just have to "find and itch then scratch it!" Hang on...
and Happy Thanksgiving

reply to post by Partygirl


Is not as easy as you may think, when you live in a small town you depend on the support of the community for your small business, when the support is no there due to either economic problems of the people or because you have to compete with the mega stores.

Here in my neck of the woods every time a person starts a new business it doesn't last more than a year and since Walmart open two stores in a town that have high unemployment and welfare most small stores are now gone.

Still even with two stores welfare went up, why? because Walmart doesn't pay enough to keep people off welfare.

reply to post by Partygirl


Explanation: S&F!

Personal Disclosure: As far as I can tell you DON'T have a problem with it at ALL and are possibly misconstruing the issues of LOGISTICS and PAPERWORK with the bieng ones own boss and as I read the OP as if I were a paying cutomer, then I don't care what fancy or clumsy logistical acrobatics are peformed to produce my coffee at a fair and reasonable price and on time.

Now because I also hate paperwork etc. I do NOT agree with any lack of accountability and or oversight and therefore it is the methods we currently use that are the problem and thats just a case of system design!

In the above case of buying a coffee .. simply put a chip in the bottom of the cup ... like a rfid chip ... and then everyone along the way just places the cup onto THEIR OWN chipped coaster card and a record is logged of who where when and who much etc. and at end of the work day/week everybody just scans their coaster card [or whatever technical medium is found best fit to do that process] through a communal terminal that is dedicated to do that and has its own independant communications network to do that [for obvious security reasons]. Now when the cup comes back to the customer who scanned their own card to the cup befor any transaction took place .. ie. they lined up in the queue so to speak (although they are the head of that queue) and when cup comes back to them they scan again and complete the transaction and the rfid chips sends the final docket tally to a display and either they are credited/debted electronically for that or another technical way is found to get around the issue of logistics to do with hard currency, as I dont see paying $??? here and there as my cup goes down the line of independant vendors that each put their 2c of work into producing my cup of coffee as being efficient.

The above system is probably exploitable and I am qualifying that with "In a fair and just world ... this might work!"

reply to post by bluestar.ranch


That was an awesome post! This is what our country was built on. Innovation. Finding an itch, and scratching it.

We are all self employed. We just don't know it. We have been duped into applying for a job instead of independently contracting our services. There is a difference folks, it's not just semantics.

I appreciate that someone has put this thread out there. A good chunk of small businesses flop every year. There are varying reasons for this, of course; bad advertising, lack of customers, no demand for product, etc.

In addition, there is the simple fact that it takes money to make money. As PixlePusher eluded to earlier, most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck *with* a job. now they don't have a paycheck coming in and they have to downsize...but that doesn't magically make the money improve.

1099 (contractor) work is, of course, one reasonable alternative, assuming there is anyone out there who needs your services. Again, it comes down to demand. If there's no demand, most people can't just move to a new location... money & obligations prevent that.

This is not a simple problem.. there will not be a simple solution. I have been fortunate. I have never been fired or laid off. I have spent many long hard years sharpening my skills and experience to be on the bleeding edge of my industry. I went through some years where every pacycheck ended up with a negative balance. I still don't have any savings to speak of and still have about $10K of non mortgage debt that I am paying off (and never adding any more -- ever). Personally, I don't allow my personal experiences and good luck to prevent me from seeing that one wrong turn could have sent me elsewhere.

reply to post by Partygirl


I had no idea that actually was an argument used by people Partygirl.

But yes it is like totally illogical, your simple post states it simply on how illogical it is. You know some times I wonder what world people seem to live in. But I do not wonder to long on such things as it is not that hard to see what world they live in, and my mind likes to wander to other subjects....Funny thing is not even the entrepreneurs know the whole mechanics of how there entrepreneurship works.

It's another mind-frame construct, but yes your right if everybody was self employed then nothing would get done. Lets just say that I have heard and seen these self proclaimed inventors of such original ideas, and even there investor counterparts. You know it is supposedly a great trick to make somebody and even a whole peoples and nation believe that they are really self sustained and an island unto themselves in all of the world, what would be the sales pitch for that.

But wisdom and even plain logic says "no man is an island" so you know were this is ultimately heading.

Watch how fast they bite the bullet once you remove the carpet from under them and there illusions they have on the world which are not even of there creation, fades into the mist. It's just another thing which will have its time in the sun Partygirl, and there are still many days left before it will be time for that sun to set. But for some it is setting today and for some it set long ago. If anything you could say they are ahead of the curve when it comes to that department.

And one day the slower ones will get it as well. If they survive that is, after all everybody gets what they give. Something about sowing and reaping I take it.

However I have faith that if people think a little on it and actually try and better yet do, they will come to and find some solutions to this predicament we call society.

the two great responses to the lack of well paying jobs seems to be...
get an education.....by going into debt...
start your own business.....which, for most, would also require going into debt..
it must be just a coincindence that both have gov't backed loan programs that will assist you into taking one this debt...right???

it's so nice to know that us going deep into debt is necessary for our economy to get back on track!!!
yep, our debt has become a big lucrative business for some people...

The problem is that businesses take money to start up (yes, there are notable exceptions). How will they get the money? Oh yeah, taking a loan from the 1% group. Almost a bit counter-productive.

I am one of those you rail against, I suppose. But think about this:

It is true not anyone can start a business, nor can anyone run a business. But there are those who can, and every one of those who does so, will probably end up employing people. So if I tell ten people to start your own business and one does, then employs nine employees, all ten have jobs.

As for me following my own advice: I ran a very successful design firm for ten years, that I started myself. I employed others during that time, and made a good living for myself. Yes, it closed over some health problems I had back then, but that was ten good years. And I'm doing it all again, as we speak.

As for needing money: I started it with $500. The bulk of that was used for incorporation papers, and the rest was used as a down payment on a used copier. I already had drawing tools I had accumulated over the years, and was able to make do with those for a while. I approached the city and told them I was starting a business but had no money to buy a license; they let me pay for my license with proceeds from the first contract. Then, as time went by, I used the income to upgrade my equipment and pay off the copier. I used a blueprint service for the first year and a half until I could afford a small print machine myself... not economical and sorta inconvenient, but it worked.

My office was in my house. I turned the living room into a combination living room/meeting office. By making meetings appointment only and using the phone for initial contact, I was able to pull this off; an hour before meeting clients, I moved a few pieces of furniture, straightened the room, and closed the doors to the rest of the house. After the meeting I moved things back and opened the doors.

I bent over backwards to make my clients happy, and word of mouth went viral. When it closed, the business was running a three-to-six month backlog. The biggest problem was closing out all those accounts.

I am now working up a client base for a new computer business, specializing in one-stop website design/maintenance for businesses, repair, and custom programming/CGI work. I'm doing it the same way: getting together the basic tools, making contacts, putting out feelers, asking people what they want. One innovation is that I plan on providing small machines as loaners while their computer is in the shop... a service no one else I know offers and which people really seem to want. It doesn't hurt me, as the loaners are cheap, bare-bones machines that I have almost nothing in (some are actually made form spare parts left over from upgrades). Innovation is more important than money.

Now I know the economy is bad, but I also know that never in the history of the world has the economy completely stopped. Even during the Great Depression, there was a need for people to saw lumber, run stores, etc. People cannot survive alone; we are social animals. Just find that service or product that you can do or make that people need and can obtain.

I will say this: don't think it's easy or that just hanging out a shingle solves everything. You have to be honest, compassionate to needs, tough at times, imaginative, and to some degree greedy. Don't make a mistake I saw recently, where the couple decided to open a bed and bath retail in an abandoned area of town to save money without enough investment to keep it afloat. That was a dead business waiting to fall down. But it can be done, and you don't need a multi-million dollar loan and twenty full time employees to start. Just find something you like to do and do it for everyone instead of for one company.

And good luck to that one of ten that may try this.

TheRedneck

Dear OP.

You brought up a relevant point - subcontract work and subcontractors.

This is the biggest mistake an individual worker can ever make - being a subcontractor, which benefits none except the main contractor.

Corporations want us to believe that subcontracting work will save cost and eliminate inefficiency, as the lowest bidder will get the contracts.

But the truth is that in order to cut cost, the subcontractor will cut corners - such as wages and material used. Majority of subcontractors do not pay for social expenditure to their workers such as healthcare, dental cares, leaves or bonuses. Workers are free lancers and on ad hoc basis. Plenty of free lancers when an economy is in trouble as now. Who benefits?

For individual subcontractors that work alone, it is even worse to the labour field. They have all kinds of motivation to get work but the bottom line is where it counts - costs to beat others to get the jobs. Thomas Friedman - the idiot son who is a regular on paper columns lauded subcontractors on a paper piece a few months back, that the world is competitive filled with free lancers whom can do the job for a dime and americans deserve to lose their jobs.

Those subcontractors come from cheap resource, low inflation, low education bases. Worse, they use MAINLY illegal copyrighted materials for their projects to submit, thereby beating all competition. And they pay no taxes, and most times, have no family to feed or rents to pay. Their overheads are small.

Short term thinking, but in the long term, they will rot on the streets as more desperate free lancers comes out of the woodwork, and it will be societies that have to feed them, these that did not contribute taxes at all.

I don't blame them, nor begrude them social expenditure, for they too, like us all, need to survive, and that's the only way possible for them, as that's how the game is rigged by the powerful, but it is the long term effects of sub contract work or free lancers that will doom honest workers in future, if not already now.

The one whom benefits are the corporations. Their costs are then greatly reduced, bear no social responsibilities, not even use of pirated material for it is not them but free lancers whom used it, and worse, pay no taxes or little taxes, profits the most out of the deal.

Subcontractors and subcontract work is a scam against humanity. Know what you are actually supporting for the long term, or either you and your next generation will be the ones to suffer. We human workers do not deserve such indignities.

As the saying goes.. "You need to spend money to make money"

Most dont have that kind of disposable income. just my thoughts

'reply to post by SeekerofTruth101

It appears to me your entire post is rooted in a misunderstanding.

There is a relatively recent phenomenon of hiring employees and calling them subcontractors. That is not only dishonest, but also illegal. Anyone who works for someone else is an employee if their work schedule and conditions are rigidly specified by their employer and especially if they are required to perform all (or in some cases most) of their work for a single entity.

The difference between being a subcontractor and an employee is this: Employees have set hours, receive specified compensation for their services, use company-provided equipment, and are under direct control of their employer. Contractors (there is really no such thing as a 'subcontractor') set their own schedules, receive specified compensation for performance, provide their own equipment, and direct their own actions. Employees are subject to tax withholding, FICA taxes, workers compensation, and unemployment insurance. Contractors are not.

The last part is precisely why some employers try to call employees 'subcontractors'. They don't have to pay all the taxes.

A contractor is no less honest in their dealings than anyone else. Contractors are people, after all, and while there are dishonest examples in both groups, there are also honest examples in both. The only difference to the worker is whether they work for a single entity at an hourly wage or for whoever they want to on a performance basis.

Incidentally, a 'corporation' does not mean 'evil manipulator' either. Corporations are simply groups of people who run a business. The reason most corporations are large is because the paperwork is much more difficult to run a corporation and there is more money available to a corporation through sale of stock (shares of future profit). No one in their right mind would want to start a large corporation if they don't have to. Also, since corporations have access to so much more capital, they can employ more people.

Just as not everyone can operate a business, not everyone can work for someone else either... because if everyone worked for someone else, who would be left to work for?

TheRedneck

reply to post by TheRedneck


The Redneck, what did you do for income until the work was coming in?

reply to post by jcord

I didn't see widespread corruption in abusing unemployment from the people I networked with. Most including myself didn't take advantage of food stamps or state healthcare. Instead we spent personal savings when we didn't need to because we didn't want to burden the system anymore than needed. So I'm not following your 2 wrongs response and I sure don't see it applying to the majority of the unemployed.

All the people I ran into wanted to get back to work. Amazingly, everyone needs a job, but they are totally left to themselves to find a job. We all need a job and the country needs taxes and needs us back to work. But, the infrastructure or support for people looking for work is almost nonexistent and the support that is out there is at best useless. I know this from direct experience and the failings of the system to get people back to work could be another thread all together. Almost all jobs have to be applied for online, and you never get to pitch yourself in person, unless the human resources person selects you out of a group of 300 applying for the job. If you do find a person in the company and let them know you're looking, they tell you they can't short circuit the company process and you have to apply only to online ads.

Again, I have only seen desperate people desperately trying to get back into the workforce. Hardly anyone you could equate to the "2 wrongs" theory.

I myself am trying to get a personal business going. It's a challenge to be sure since I don't have a spouse's salary to fall back on like some people.

I guess I too am one of the ones you speak of. I did tell you (I think) in another thread that you could start your own business.

I was laid off two years ago when my office closed. There was no one hiring in my field at the time. I couldn't wait so I started a cleaning company. It is not glamorous but it brings in cash. I had most of what I needed to start right in my home so there was no real initial outlay other than fuel. I relied on friends to help send referrals. I bust my buns to make sure every customer gets exactly what they want. If they don't the work is redone at no charge.

It has taken two years but I now have around 16 clients and have one person working with me full time and two that help out when we are overloaded on a particular day. I plan next week to take information to some local businesses to try to get more clients. The additional thing that I've done is to make my business not just a cleaning service. I offer minor repairs and maintenance, lawn services, vacation services, pet sitting, catering, dj, graphics. There are a lot of things I know how to do so I haven't limited myself to just cleaning. That way I can reach more people. I have approximately four clients for graphics and 3 computer clients. I'm their IT dept.

It is not easy. There are still plenty of times that money is very low depending on the payment cycle of some of the commercial clients. But I'm still doing it and it nets about $2k a month - no where near what I made but better than nothing.

FYI while building the business I was still applying for work of any kind. I've applied for retail sales, manufacturing, warehousing, just about anything that I could find on the job boards. The problem with applying for jobs now is it is all computerized and a lot of employers specify that you are not to conact them at all. You never get the chance to sell yourself to an employer. When they are receiving thousands of applications via computer its very hard to get yourself noticed.

Oh, I was not born with a silver spoon (maybe a rusty fork), have never had a large amount of money and didn't inherit anything but some quilts from a family member. I grew up pretty much dirt poor but with a Mom that taught us to depend on ourselves and that we are worth being here.

reply to post by thepixelpusher

Suffered.

That's something a lot of people don't seem to realize about starting a business... there is a sacrifice, at least at first. That regular paycheck doesn't happen, and when money comes in, you better squirrel as much back as you can. It's also a major reason for early failure IMO.

My first year was the worst. Luckily it was just me and my wife, and we would have made a college student feel wealthy at times. After that, word of mouth started kicking in, and opportunities started to appear more often. After ten years, I was pulling in some pretty ni

The flip side of the money issue is that there can also be good times. I could pay cash for large purchases. I bought a mobile home and had it delivered for cash, off one good job. I guess that's a large part of why I don't begrudge companies large profits; I wonder how many lean years they went through to get them.

TheRedneck

The biggest hurdles are start up costs and stomach for risk. Good luck starting a business while broke. Are you willing to go all in when you could coast for 6-12 months while JOB hunting instead. Oh lets not forget once self-employed it's hard to suck the government's big hairy D*** if you need to because until you officially dissolve the business they will assume you are OK even if it's obvious you are not.

well me and my x started a porch sale (kinda a every day yard sale .
selling just clothing lawn stuff sports stuff things we picked up in bulk at accuton or were ever .
so we made anyware from 150 to 350 extra a week doing this (small town ) anyway I sayw ell this is noyt bad so lets go legal and gop down to city hall to get primit so as its legal . well primit was only 25$ or so good for a year (not bad thinks i ) AA the chetch was we also had to file for taxes and take taxes from ppl who bought stuff.
and they wanted 400$ up front then and there and you had to file 4 times a year showing every sale bla bla bla and so on untill it cost you 10$ for every dollar you make and 2 hours of work for ever one hour you invest .
these guys posting here claming to do so well are cheating the system I grante it nothing simple or cheep or easy about it .
Dude has hios painting bussiness saying he started with a truck and 20$ (NOT BONDED NO insurance NOT paying TAXES nore getting his LICANCE .
Dude you get cought better be prepared to pay 100k or more and maybe jail time taxc evasion is not good