A young entrepreneur in NYC has seized an opportunity and in exchange, is making the news and in business -


Forget stocks. Sneaker futures are making Wall Street look like a swap meet.

High-end kicks are becoming the currency of choice in New York, and one 16-year-old is taking advantage of the trend — using his own five-figure stock of 45 mint-condition basketball shoes to open the world’s first sneaker pawn shop.


“Young kids don’t have jewelry. They don’t have cars,” said Troy Reed, dad of young entrepreneur Chase “Sneakers” Reed. “But what they do have is the thousands of dollars worth of sneakers in their house.”


Chase, a 10th-grader at Frederick Douglass Academy in Harlem, still marvels over pictures of the freshest sneaker designs online and waits in line for hours to add to his collection. Only now he and his father are also getting them from fellow “investors” who want quick cash.

Full article here - http://nyp.st/1lA5Dk6

Brilliant and insightful podcast on Bitcoin - 1hour long (maybe more). 

From The Federalist Society

Featuring:
Jim Harper, Global Policy Counsel, The Bitcoin Foundation, and Senior Fellow, Cato Institute
Chip Poncy, Co-founder, The Financial Integrity Network, and former Senior Advisor, U.S. Department of Treasury
Moderator: Vincent J. Vitkowsky, Partner, Seiger Gfeller Laurie LLP

Podcast Link

From the PeachPundit.com

Gingrey Circling The Bowl: US Rep. Phil Gingrey's Senate campaign seems to have been designed for the sole purpose of keeping Karen Handel out of the runoff by burying her in a mountain of money and smears. Gaffe-tastic Gingrey's latest attack, that Handel "promoted teenage homosexuality" is an embarassing end to an otherwise solid congressional career. According to The Hill: "Gingrey has languished in fifth place behind Handel, Perdue, Kingston and Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) in most recent polls of the race." That sound you just heard was a toilet flushing.

Originally from The Telegraph by Allister Heath

Given that today’s fashionable economic ideas tend to become tomorrow’s government policies, it’s not looking good for the future of free-market capitalism. Consider the current bestselling book in America, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, a hugely important work that has already become the defining post-crisis manifesto. Its ground-breaking research on historic patterns of wealth ownership is second to none, but its conclusions are horrendously flawed.


Its author, the French economist Thomas Piketty, advocates an 80pc income tax rate for those earning more than £300,000 a year. For good measure, he also floats a range of other even worse ideas, including an internationally coordinated progressive wealth tax, hitting anybody with at least £165,000 in assets and peaking at a crippling 10pc a year on billionaires, a windfall tax on private capital, a dose of inflation and a war on inherited wealth. It’s the kind of hardcore message to warm the hearts of your average British socialist, circa 1976 – and yet it is being embraced as the latest, cutting-edge thinking.


Even more fantastically, this assault on private property and wages would supposedly have no meaningful negative side-effects. Piketty writes that “the evidence suggests that a rate [of tax] of the order of 80pc on incomes over $500,000 or $1m a year would not reduce the growth of the US economy but would, in fact, distribute the fruits of growth more widely while imposing reasonable limits on economically useless behaviour”. Instead of being laughed out of town, Piketty is being treated with the sort of adulation usually reserved for a rock star.


At this point, I could cite some of the many peer-reviewed studies that show — unlike the author’s own research — how high marginal tax rates reduce work and effort, remind readers that eating capital is the best way to impoverish a nation, reduce productivity growth and keep wages down, or point out that societies where the most successful entrepreneurs are rewarded by the state seizing their assets don’t prosper.


Instead, let me consider Piketty’s big idea, which he believes justifies his policies of “confiscatory” taxation – to him, a positive term. He believes that in a peacetime free-market economy, the returns on capital — dividends, interest, rents and capital gains — inevitably grow faster than the overall economy. The owners of capital will therefore end up grabbing an ever-greater slice of the pie, leaving workers with less and less.

- I could not agree more. To read the full article, and review/ debate, please visit the article here. 

Originally (more fully Maundy ceremony): the ceremony of washing the feet of a number of poor people, performed by royal or other eminent people, or by ecclesiastics, on the Thursday before Easter (see Maundy Thursday n.), and commonly followed by the distribution of clothing, food, or money (now hist.); also in extended use. Later (also Royal Maundy): the distribution of gifts of money to a number of chosen recipients by the British sovereign on Maundy Thursday.

For the full article read here - http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/115188

Chaganomics Easter 2014

Happy Easter to Atlanta and London - CSH

Previously published at AllBusiness.com

After sitting in the captain’s seat long enough you will find that even when businesses or departments fail, rarely do they fail completely. You always learn from the experience.

Down the road you tend to hope that you need to learn less and that you will make more on ventures, but the safety net of being able to come back stronger and more focused is a reality if planned and detailed enough. In fact, learning should never stop. To be a career entrepreneur and business owner you need to know the scene, or hire people who do.

When a business changes course, what do you do? Why did the venture change course? Perhaps the ventures is dead in the water; perhaps you need to take a step back…

Pivoting is an obvious term. When the idea doesn’t work — or possibly does not gain traction after a set time — the idea and venture must be retooled. Anything I have been involved in has involved capital, time, and skilled labor. No back turning here. If the first leg falls through, just retool it. Gather the resources from the original idea and see what you can come up with for phase II.

Famous pivots include Twitter (which began as Odeo), Instagram (which began as Burbn), and even Wrigley.

I was involved in a restructuring years back. It was a horrendous upheaval, as proper due diligence was not executed, and human resources was more of a dream department than a reality. It was horrible but I learned a great deal — a crash course MBA experience — and developed vital skills that I will never forget.

Pivoting naturally alters the flow of the venture idea. Original partners may elect to leave, resulting in a leaner, more direct model, or perhaps develop into an entirely new venture on the wings of the original folded idea. If you have a great team, putting a venture on ice often helps the nature of the business (it sinks or swims in other words) and sharpens the identity of the company.

Share on twitterShare on linkedinShare on facebookShare on google_plusone_shareShare on pinterest_shareShare on emailMore Sharing Ser

After sitting in the captain’s seat long enough you will find that even when businesses or departments fail, rarely do they fail completely. You always learn from the experience.

Down the road you tend to hope that you need to learn less and that you will make more on ventures, but the safety net of being able to come back stronger and more focused is a reality if planned and detailed enough. In fact, learning should never stop. To be a career entrepreneur and business owner you need to know the scene, or hire people who do.

When a business changes course, what do you do? Why did the venture change course? Perhaps the ventures is dead in the water; perhaps you need to take a step back…

Pivoting is an obvious term. When the idea doesn’t work — or possibly does not gain traction after a set time — the idea and venture must be retooled. Anything I have been involved in has involved capital, time, and skilled labor. No back turning here. If the first leg falls through, just retool it. Gather the resources from the original idea and see what you can come up with for phase II.

Famous pivots include Twitter (which began as Odeo), Instagram (which began as Burbn), and even Wrigley.

I was involved in a restructuring years back. It was a horrendous upheaval, as proper due diligence was not executed, and human resources was more of a dream department than a reality. It was horrible but I learned a great deal — a crash course MBA experience — and developed vital skills that I will never forget.

Pivoting naturally alters the flow of the venture idea. Original partners may elect to leave, resulting in a leaner, more direct model, or perhaps develop into an entirely new venture on the wings of the original folded idea. If you have a great team, putting a venture on ice often helps the nature of the business (it sinks or swims in other words) and sharpens the identity of the company.More Sharing S

House Bill 885, 2014

Can we say CYA?

Gov. Deal wants reelection and is too timid to allow anything like a weed bill to pass this session (2014 Ga Assembly). Much like the fate of House Bill 4.
While that may seem ridiculous, it is also heartless and economically stupid, but that is politics and such is life.

House Bill 885, which received overwhelming support - and victory in the house - is dead for 2014, but support and dedication will make this a reality in 2015, and let us strive for a more progressive bill that will emerge to push the state and commissions to allow innovation and deregulation to create alternative revenue, and kick-start countless other ventures related to medicine, agriculture and health. 

"ATLANTA - The effort to legalize medical marijuana in Georgia this year died at midnight despite votes favoring the move in both houses. The General Assembly adjourned for the 2014 session with the House and Senate stalemated over the move to tie the medical marijuana bill to insurance for children's autism.

On the 40th and last day of the session, the Senate approved, 54-0, House Bill 885 legalizing some forms of marijuana for medical uses, but added provisions requiring insurance coverage for treatment of autism in children.

The key sponsor, state Rep. Allen Peake (R) of Macon, said the bill wouldn't pass the House with the autism provision because it's seen as increasing the cost of health insurance for small businesses.

In a last-ditch effort late Thursday night, the House passed yet another bill that included medical marijuana and sent it to the Senate. Peake pleaded with the Senate to pass it.

On Twitter, Peake said the bill was on life-support.

But state Sen. Renee Unterman of Gwinnett County, the chairwoman of the Senate Health and Human Services committee, which added the autism provision, said she was insisting on it, and the Senate leadership closed ranks.

Presiding In the Senate chamber late Thursday night, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle fumed, repeatedly accusing the House of holding up action to help children on autism and foster care reform."

Full Article Here

What a mess! The Quiznos details emerge:

The voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition that Quiznos Global LLC filed Friday shows Quiznos has as much as $50,000 in assets and from $500 million to $1 billion in liabilities. Quiznos checked the box on the petition indicating the company has from 10,001 to 25,000 creditors.

Quiznos included in its filing a list of the 35 largest unsecured creditors, with U.S. Bank listed as being owed $173.8 million. But the bank said it's merely the agent for the collateralized debt obligation and isn't owed any money by Quiznos.

Quiznos owes three other companies more than $1 million.

Horizon Media Inc., an advertising agency in New York, has an unsecured claim for $3.67 million. MG-1005 LLC, the Denver company that previously owned the downtown building where Quiznos has its headquarters, is owed $3.62 million. Maple Leaf Bakery Inc., of Des Plaines, Ill., has an unsecured claim for $1.65 million.

The Wall Street Journal reported the senior creditors would receive all of the equity in Quiznos in exchange for $444 million in debt. They also would receive $200 million in new debt. Unsecured creditors would receive some of the equity, plus a share of any proceeds from a lawsuit revolving around the company's 2012 restructuring.

Full Article Here

Savannah Port Snubbed By Obama Administration

Despite frequent public promises by the President and the vice President to fund the federal portion of the dredging of the Savannah Harbor, when it came time to pony up, the White House proved it can't keep promises, and the scramble is on to keep the port expansion project on track.Governor Deal announced that Georgia would keep the project going with the $231 million in State funds already committed -but the White House says they can't permit that. "Because Congress hasn't reauthorized the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) in more than seven years, many projects like the project in Savannah, Ga., haven't been able to move forward," read a White House statement. That's not procedural, that's deliberate. 

Read more at PeachPundit.com

With crowdfunding legal in some states and taking place virtually everywhere, the spectrum has narrowed. It is plain to see how the movement is playing out in the immediate future. To start, crowdfunding is not a game changer. At most it is a tool used for offering equity, debt, preselling goods, production funds, and gifts. Kickstarter has proven the possibility of bringing people together to fund projects. However, that is much different in comparison to offering debt and equity.

In my opinion, the equity/ debt portion ( which is legal in the state of Georgia) forces those involved to rise to a certain professional level. That is the Catch 22 — only about 1-2 percent of ventures make it to the VC level — so I would have to guestimate that most crowdfunding businesses will not succeed, primarily due to the natural topography of business and management skills.

If you are savvy enough, do a DPO (direct public offering) in a favorable jurisdiction. Use AngleList. Why not utilize the IGE (Invest Georgia Exemption) if you are in Georgia? Regardless, these new investment laws are really resurrected laws that were standard early last century, but investors and non-investors alike were ripped off left and right. To execute successfully today, investors will need investor relations and many company owners will not be able to field the flurry. This is the beginning of top level enterprise, crowdfunding is – in theory – the new angel investor.

One of the most important tools an entrepreneur can have is the ability to pivot and adapt. Those who cannot will not survive or prosper at the levels they strive for. Gone are the days of the hardheaded startup guru. These are the days of creative finance and entrepreneurs need to step it up to the next level.

Article on AllBusiness.com

Article on HuffingtonPost.com

Tower of London Ravens News -

www.news-republic.com/Web/ArticleWeb.aspx?regionid=1&articleid=19114727

Article from AllBusiness.com

With crowdfunding legal in some states and taking place virtually everywhere, the spectrum has narrowed. It is plain to see how the movement is playing out in the immediate future. To start, crowdfunding is not a game changer. At most it is a tool used for offering equity, debt, preselling goods, production funds, and gifts. Kickstarter has proven the possibility of bringing people together to fund projects. However, that is much different in comparison to offering debt and equity.

In my opinion, the equity/ debt portion ( which is legal in the state of Georgia) forces those involved to rise to a certain professional level. That is the Catch 22 — only about 1-2 percent of ventures make it to the VC level — so I would have to guestimate that most crowdfunding businesses will not succeed, primarily due to the natural topography of business and management skills.

Continue reading