Also in This Issue... ■■
Extended Warranties… Worthwhile or Not?
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Patriot’s Corner: Dean Rusk
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Tips to Get Ahead! Always late on completing projects?
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Your iPhone Could Help Save Your Life
What Happened to my Car Warranty?
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controversy has developed over fuel mixtures marketed by gasoline retailers across the country, and it could have a disastrous effect on the warranty covering your automobile. The root of the issue is the approval by the Environmental Protection Agency to allow gasoline stations to promote the sale of E-15, a 15% ethanol/85% traditional gasoline blend that may be harmful in vehicles produced prior to 2012. The battle lines are being drawn in this
dispute, with factions like the EPA and the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) supporting E-15, and the American Automobile Association (AAA), the American Petroleum Institute (API) and others expressing serious concerns. The concerns deal with what auto industry trade groups like Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (Auto Alliance) have described as potential adverse effects of fuel containing 15% ethanol, including “damaged valves and valve seats, which can lead to loss of compression and power, diminished vehicle performance, misfires, engine damage, as well as poor fuel economy and increased emissions.” On the flip side of this argument, EPA has reported test results indicating E-15 continued on pg. 4
Good Sense
News vol. 1 • issue 4
Understanding the Problems of Small Businesses - Where Do You Start?
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mall business, small problems? Not on your life! There is nothing small about the problems faced by small businesses, especially after what’s happened to the economy - in America and around the globe - over the past five years. And while it’s often easy for the news media to focus on the issues facing major corporations, the simple reality is that small businesses represent over 99% of all employer firms, pay 45 percent of total U.S. private payroll, and have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the last decade. Small businesses are clearly the lifeblood of our country’s economic engine, employing half member of the small business workforce. The of all private sector workers. But what actually SBA itself, by the way, with its annual budget is a small business? Well, according to the U.S. appropriation of over nearly a billion dollars Small Business Administration (SBA), “a small and over 2,000 employees spread across 23 mabusiness concern is one that is independently jor departments, is clearly not in this category. owned and operated, is organized for profit, But, back to the problems. Despite their flexand is not dominant in ibility and the freedom its field.” Actual sizes that comes from operatvary by industry, with without the massive Sm a l l b u s i n e s s e s a re ing small manufacturing overhead that typically firms usually falling into clearly the lifeblood of our comes with big business, a range of 500 to 1500 small business owners employees, while whole- country’s economic engine, encounter just as many, if saling firms with 100 to not many more, problems 500 employees are usu- employing half of all private navigating the whitewaally categorized as “small ters of commerce. In fact, business.” Other indus- sector workers. their very lack of size oftries are categorized by ten makes problems like annual revenues (for excost increases more painample, services companies with annual receipts ful. And that is exactly what’s happening in the ranging from $2.5 to $21.5 million, retailers area of health insurance costs. In fact, the most with $5.0 to $21.0 million in receipts, etc. fall recent “Small Business Problems and Priorities” into the small business grouping). survey results published by the National FedAlthough the SBA’s classification system eration of Independent Business (NFIB) clearly seems pretty broad, it’s likely that unless you’re ranks the cost of health insurance as the most working for a Fortune 500 company, you’re a severe problem facing small businesses today. continued on pg.4