News with Regional Ties

I thought I'd comb through some recent business news columns and add some opinions & commentary to the stories with some local ties, so here goes:
If you've been to the mall lately, you may have shopped at a Steve & Barry's. There are a total of nine locations in the great state of Indiana.

Their philosophy has been to simply sell some nice clothes cheaply, but perhaps they've been selling them too cheaply because they're now filing bankruptcy.

Don't let that worry you about where to get your next deal on clothes, though, because there's some hope. A bankruptcy court judge recently approved another company's bid to acquire all of the assets of Steve & Barry's LLC. So, the majority of Steve & Barry's stores should continue to operate, and there are currently almost 300 of them in total to keep you occupied by looking for great deals.

Side note: It must be tough in the clothing industry right now because you'll recall that family-clothing retailer Goody's filed for bankruptcy a short while back, but the store in Linton appears safe from closing thus far. Not all locations fared so well.

Reportedly, in other recent news around the state, Bloomington-based Author Solutions was fined $50,000 for using unauthorized copies of various popular software programs.
As a company that provides self-publishing services to authors, those very people who depend on copyright protections, the company appears very hypocritical with this announcement; however, President and CEO Kevin Weiss said the infringement happened under prior ownership.

It seems to be an exceptionally damaging story, given they're in the copyright business, while infringing upon the copyrights of others, but we'll just have to see how this all unfolds -- and if it ultimately affects their own bottom-line more than just the $50,000 fine levied.
Will authors react or just keep busy writing?

Time will tell.

It comes as no surprise to small business owners that it can be costly to "follow the rules" of government regulations.

In fact, testimony given by Thomas M. Sullivan, who is the Chief Counsel for Advocacy for the U.S. Small Business Administration, to a U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee recently on July 30th, focused on the costs to businesses for "following the rules". These costs are higher for smaller firms than larger ones, too, he reported.

Here is an excerpt from the testimony, including some interesting tidbits on small business nationwide:

"Small businesses are extremely important to the U.S. economy. Economic data shows that 99.7% of firms that have employees are small businesses. Small businesses employ over half of the more than 145 million American workers. The small business sector is the primary engine of job creation, growth and innovation. Despite the importance of small business to our country's economic strength, the 2005 Advocacy-funded study by W. Mark Crain, The Impact of Regulatory Costs on Small Firms, found that, in general, small businesses are disproportionately impacted by the total federal regulatory burden. The overall regulatory burden was estimated by Crain to exceed $1.1 trillion in 2004. For small firms, employing fewer than 20 employees, the annual regulatory burden in 2004 was estimated to be $7,647 per employee -- which is 45 percent greater than the $5,282 per employee burden estimated for firms with more than 500 employees."

So, as most news articles would have it, there's a lot of negative stories.

Lastly, to end on a high note, there is one bright spot here in Indiana, and it's in forestry and hardwood sales. They are supposedly holding up pretty well in the midst of national recession. A lot of people may not realize but several trees are logged from Greene County land and "exported" out of the county ultimately. It's a pretty big crop for the area, and it provides several jobs to the community.

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This blog post by Chris Wathen was also published in his Linton, Indiana based Greene County Daily World blog entitled, "Riddle Me This".