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Mr. Girard’s experience is apparently much more common than the policy makers in Washington might think. A study commissioned by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Mo., which supports entrepreneurial education, found that almost one in five Americans who filed for personal bankruptcy protection in recent years had operated businesses – small companies, home enterprises or start-ups – within two years of filing for bankruptcy.
Many of them had incorrectly filled out their paperwork, so the government mistakenly counted them as individuals, not businesses. In many more instances, the study showed, they had been classified as individuals by a computer software oversight.
The study’s findings raise the possibility that the bankruptcy law President Bush signed in April, and which is to take effect in October, may have damaging ramifications for the nation’s entrepreneurial culture.
Instead of cracking down almost entirely on careless consumers who cannot pay credit card bills, the study indicates, the legislation threatens to hobble untold numbers of entrepreneurs and small-business owners caught in financial setbacks.
Wisconsin Senators Kohl & Feingold supported the bankruptcy reform law. The Kauffman report can be downloaded here.
Driving north on John Nolen Drive [map] this afternoon, I saw this fine gentleman wearing a black armband and waving the Union Jack. I took this with my cellphone, so it’s not a great picture, but it does capture the spirit (btw, there’s a photographer just below the flag. I imagine this will appear in one of the local newspapers tomorrow).
UPDATE: John Maniaci took this very nice photo.
(Click the photo for a larger version)
I walked to the bottom of my driveway early this morning to grab the NY Times (I still get the fishwrap version) and saw that another paper was dropped off (the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and the Wisconsin State Journal periodically drop promotional copies around the neighborhood).
The 2nd paper was rather interesting: the first two pages were advertising “Brought to you by Middleton Ford”. Perhaps this advertiser bought x number of copies that were dropped around the area? Most interestingly, the advertiser pages completely covered the Wisconsin State Journal. From the advertiser perspective, it is certainly in your face for those who take the paper out of the bag (why not direct mail?). From the State Journal’s perspective, however, it is a big dilution of the brand. Promo copies (try us) are one thing, but a promo copy completely wrapped in an ad is another.
This approach is identical to traditional advertiser only publications. Perhaps that’s where the daily papers will end up: free to all readers, but with a much larger and more invasive ad presence.
Meanwhile, Joseph T. Hallinan covers McClatchy’s circulation woes at the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Finally, I took a look at local coverage/links to today’s very unfortunate London events around 7:00a.m. at two popular local news sites, Capital Newspapers’ madison.com site and Morgan Murphy Media’s channel3000.com. At 6:48a.m., channel3000 had a photo of British PM Tony Blair’s press conference along with a story and links. madison.com did not mention this breaking story (they later posted a link to an AP story on the London bombing). (click to view a screen shot of the two sites at 6:48a.m. today). The internet’s news cycle is clearly different than the traditional paper’s 24 hour process.
Having said all that, I think the local sites are much better off 99% focused on local issues. There was and is no shortage of coverage on the London events around the net.
Follow the information from London via these links:
Bob Geldof’s Live8 music is now online:
Singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens has a lofty goal: exploring each of the 50 states in song. He’s already released a critically acclaimed full-length CD simply called Michigan. His latest honors the people, places and history of Illinois.
Independent radio producers Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister were curious about how Stevens writes his songs, which, much like their own work, are filled with stories of places and people. So, they introduced Stevens to the Arkansas town of Brinkley.
MP3: The Lord God Bird
So, lets take a look at the $44 million police department budget. (Hey – I’ve already burned this bridge, I might as well just go with it.) At this point your eyes have probably glazed over, but don’t worry, it’s all of three pages long with lots of white space. Clicking on the link is an illuminating experience. You will find that for 2005 we have two programs in the police department. Field Operations which are $39,373,690 and Support Operations which are $4,718,020. There is a one paragraph description of these services. Additionally, in this case there are 6 “budget highlights” to further inform you about changes from last year’s budget. Then, on page 3 there is the break down into the 9 budget line items. Are you hungry for more information? Permanent Salary Detail will show you each of the positions in the department along with Workers Comp, Premium Pay and Vacation/Comp time accrued. This accounts for $26 million of the budget. You can also look at Minor Objects to find out that purchased services is $1.4 million, supplies are $750,000, there is $2.6 million in inter-departmental charges and $6,000 for debt/other financing. On the bottom you can see that they charge $1.1 million to grants and other departments. Finally, you can see that they are spending $18,000 in Capital Objects. If you were following along only a little, you now realize that the detail doesn’t add up to $44 million. Where’d the rest of the money go? The “details” only add up to about $31 million.
The growing tax squeeze facing Madison residents (taxes growing at a faster rate than incomes) makes budget transparency a necessity. The current local spending increases, given sluggish economic growth are simply not sustainable. I applaud the folks at dane101 for getting this rolling.
Nathan Cochrane on becoming an unperson. July 1, 2005 was the first day of the Real ID Act, supported by our good Senators Feingold and Kohl.
We seldom legislate new technologies into being. They emerge, and we plunge with them into whatever vortices of change they generate. We legislate after the fact, in a perpetual game of catch-up, as best we can, while our new technologies redefine us – as surely and perhaps as terribly as we’ve been redefined by broadcast television.“Who owns the words?” asked a disembodied but very persistent voice throughout much of Burroughs’ work. Who does own them now? Who owns the music and the rest of our culture? We do. All of us.
Though not all of us know it – yet.
