Corra Daily Planet

When the Police Revolt–Chicago Sheriffs Won’t Do Evictions

There is the letter of the law and sometimes social conscience can supersed the letter of the law.   In this case, the Chicago Sheriff’s Department has suspended all efforts to evict renters from housing where the mortgage had reached foreclosure.   According to the article on Chicago’s CBS Channel 2 News, Sheriff Tom Dart feels his first priority is to see that those renting apartments in these foreclosed properties are protected from eviction.

Instead of throwing renters out on the street, he is giving them four months to find another place to live.  Most renters, he feels, pay their rent, never miss the payments, and don’t deserve to be evicted because the landlord couldn’t meet his mortgage.    Of course the Illinois Bankers Association and, I’m sure, a heap of landlords are angry at Sheriff Tom for not enforcing the law.

But perhaps Sheriff Tom realizes a higher law, and in an era of venality and insensitivity he choose to be fair to people.   It’s refreshing.  As for those who do not pay their rent, they are evicted.   Sheriff Tom is on pace to conduct some 4,500 mortgage foreclosure evictions this year.   In 2006 he conducted what now seems like a mere 1,771 evictions.   Times change.   And not always for the better.

As a company that, along with pre-employment screening, provides credit reports and eviction reports to landlords, we can still recognize the logic of the Sheriff’s decision. In these dire times, as we have just found out, not all rules and regulations work as they should Many are inapproriate for the conditions at hand.

A man with a sense of the law, but a sense of fairness.  Way to go, Sheriff Tom.

Are You Running Your Business Like the Failed Financial Groups?

Okay, so the country rages about bailouts and severance packages, causing at least some politicians to exhibit a rare display of conscience.   People resent bailing out the privileged and those who squandered their money.  Nevertheless, the bailout package passed both houses, mostly out of an act of desperation than a deliberate strategy.

You would think when you receive this kind of rescue from Uncle Sam, the taxpayers of this country, that you would at least be a little bit cool.  You would think you would keep a low profile.   And above all, you would think you would start tightening the belt, watching the bucks and looking to be more cost effective.

Naw.  According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, AIG, which just received $85 billion in bailout money, took its executives on a luxury retreat to one of Southern California’s most expensive resorts.  The cost for this little junket was about $440 Thousand.   For the morbidly curious, that sum broke down to $200 thousand in rooms, $150 thousand in meals, $23 thousand in spa charges, and, of course $7 thousand for golf.   After all, what can company executives do after they just drove one of the leading American corporate icons into the ground but golf?

People are outraged, as well they should be.   After the great capitalists of the world came hat and hand to Uncle Sam, you would think they would show just a little discretion.  Apparently, it hasn’t sunk in yet that the salad days are over, especially at the expense of the American public, the person who has to work for a living for a lot less than several million a year in bonuses.

So has your company gotten the message?  Are you still operating as if the salad days have not yet faded out of view?   Do you squander money and offer bonuses not to the workers who can keep your business afloat but to the executives who are running into the ground?

Have you reevaluated your expenditures and reviewed what works and what doesn’t?  Hopefully, you have figured out how to cut your costs and increase efficiency.   As your competitors fall by the wayside in this tough economy, are you looking for ways to pick up their clients and increase your own business?

To do so you need to conduct corporate research and business credit reports to be sure the clients you do pick up can still afford to pay you.   As we have seen, bad credit clients can lead to disaster.  Yours.   And for the employees you do recruit right now, you should be running background checks to make sure they will not bring you embarrassment, or cause you the expense of litigation.  You have to be sure your new job candidates can actually do what they say they can do.   Good hires can be very beneficial.   Bad hires, at a time like this, especially, can cause serious pain.

There are valuable lessons to be gained by history.  History, among other things, offers templates for survival.   Taking a glance back and thinking in modern mindsets, we can not only survive but prevail in these times.  It takes more work.   Most of you have been working hard enough, and now you may be working harder yet.   Be grateful.  The other side of it is that you may not be working at all.

Courts Closed Monday, October 13 for Columbus Day

Government agencies will be closed in observance of Columbus Day on

Monday, October 13, 2008. Please expect minor delays for some court records for county criminal and county civil searches, as well as some statewide court research. 

George Soros May Have it Right on the Fed Bailing Out the Financial Crisis

I believe it was the ever controversial global financier George Soros who offered what was to me the sanest remedy for the financial crisis.   Rather than have the government buy a lot of bad paper, worthless loans, etc., he proposed something quite simple.

Soros proposed that since a cash infusion was the most vital aspect of recovery and would help reduce the tight credit, the Fed should invest money directly with the banks and then take an equity position in each of the banks that borrowed this much needed cash.  There was a lot of moaning on Wall Street about his proposal, probably because a lot of those who caused this debacle in the first place would stand less of a chance of profiting from the government bailout.   Some even declared Soros’ plan was…gasp…Socialism.  If that is the case, and you can certainly argue it is, then how do the same people regard government ownership of the collapsing brokerage houses, mortgages and institutions like AIG?

Anyway, days pass and the market keeps on dropping like an anvil in an air shaft, and now the Fed announces it will be lending money directly to businesses outside the financial sector   This was reported by Yahoo and the other news agencies.   In fact, the Fed will be picking up the commercial paper various business accrue to pay salaries and buy supplies.

Look, we all know with things as bad as they are it is incumbent upon the government and everybody else to do whatever they have to do to pull the economy out of nose dive.   But like most of those reading this, increasingly I get a feeling that there is growing desperation.   To mimic the famed screenwriter, William Goldman, “nobody knows nothing,” and it is really starting to show.

Perhaps Sorors’ idea is not such a bad one, after all.   Bypass all the bad debt and give the banks money to work with.  Banks can then extend credit to businesses  and perhaps get the economy flowing again.  Maybe it will work.  Maybe it won’t.   But as we did during the Great Depression, try anything, and if it works keep doing it.   We are a pragmatic nation, after all.

Is the Bailout Good For Small Business?

It seems come election time politicians and those who curry favor with them are suddenly concerned about small businesses.   Much focus for the better part of a year is on the corporate giants, the multi-national corporations, and then when your vote is needed we get to hear how small business owners are the backbone of this country.

Well, of course they are.   They always have been and unless more egregious mistakes, miscalculations, and overbearing regulations, drive us out of business, we always will be.   For one thing, as it has been reported time and again, people tend to trust us more.   We are more responsive and much more personal.   Some of us still answer the phone.

According to an article printed in Inc.com small business lobbies and trade groups grudgingly supported the bailout package and applauded its passing, last week.   Supposedly there is about $100 Billion in tax breaks and related provisions for small business.  We shall see.

If you are a small business, in this very tricky economic climate you have to proceed with caution.   No accounts could be someone else’s bad accounts who are coming to you because they have burned their bridges with the last vendor.

If you are planning to hire, the recent layoffs and the layoffs to come will offer a fair selection of skilled employees.   But be sure to run background checks on these job candidates.   Most will be fine, but again you don’t want to be recruiting someone else’s bad news.   Bad news employees will not only cost you in hiring and retraining, but you risk losing clients through incompetence and mishandling.   Preemployment screening is a necessity in this day and age.

Above all watch your spending.   Money is tight and credit is tough.   So watch how you spend your money.   That said, some expenditures will prove good investments.   But others may just be a waste of cash.   Right now, in these bad financial times, everyone and his mother is calling you with some special offer, some promotion, some pitch to gain new business.  Most are not worth it.   Bad times are bad times.  And in bad times to the best way to garner clients is the old fashioned way.   Through personal pitches and excellent service.   Customers are not impressed when a third party calls them.   They are impressed when the owner gives them a shout.

So hang in there.   Things change.  And if you are a small business then you really are the backbone of this country.

Strikes. They Can Hurt in More Ways Than One.

Nobody likes a strike.  Well, almost nobody.   Sometimes in the entertainment industry when movies are flopping and the audience stays away in droves from the new television season, a strike is a good way to reduce overhead.   All under the guise of labor difficulties.   Let them stay out there, is the general executive sentiment toward striking employees.

Perhaps it is true in other industry sectors as well.  But, overall, a strike is a nasty event where most of the time no one really wins.   If you are the striking force, you lose work, abuse your shoe leather and by the time it is all over, the compensation may not outweigh the initial wage.  Not all the time, but sometimes.

On the other hand, if you are the company, then you face production delays, order cancellations, bad press, and an inability to meet you commitment to orders and shipping.  If you make a serious investment in the product and you can’t meet deliveries, you are losing money everyday you can’t get your goods from your place to their place.

It’s lousy.  Witness the Boeing Strike.  Not only is Boeing hurting but so are its suppliers and the labor force who are employed by its suppliers.   They are not striking but they are also losing work.   In all, there are as many of 5,700 different companies that are affected by the Boeing strike.

Who wins?  Who loses?  I’ll leave those answers to someone else.   But it is fair to note that some say timing is everything.  In the case of a strike, if there is timing at all then it’s bad timing.  And with this terrible economy, bad timing couldn’t be much worse.

Some Businesses in Tough Times Can Lose Their Sense of Ethics

Unless you are Rip Van Winkle, you realize these are tough times for the economy.   All the wrong things are down, such as manufacturing, exports, retail, and all the wrong things are up, prices for goods, unemployment, energy costs.   Pretty crazy.

In these times reputable people and reputable people in business can tend to get desperate.   They can make stupid moves, and they can do things where scammers take advantage of them.   And then there are the people who can convenient forget their business ethics and start to cheat a little, and then a little more.   They may overcharge or shave a little in inventory or services.   If they are a client they may pay you way late or not even pay you at all.   They can lie, cheat, and steal.

Most of us have been through it, and some of us are experiencing it now.   Additionally, we can have desperate job applicants lie during their preemployment screening process by claiming degrees they don’t have, experience they lack, or disregarding the one thing they might have–criminal records.

It just makes good sense to run thorough background checks on your job candidates and run corporate research including domestic business credit reports as well as international business credit reports on prospective clients.   It’s terrific they are coming to you for business, but then are they coming to you because they left their last vendor in the lurch?   You don’t want to discover you are so fortunate only because they haven’t paid their last providers and that you are the next guy down on the list.

So check them out before you hire.  And check them out before you do business.

With an Economy Like This, Who Needs a Rollercoaster?

We all like our thrills.   But with this economy, the nerve jolting impact of the daily market reports should be enough to keep our heart rates up.   The stock market alone leaps and dives, as it was reported in Yahoo Finance, in “a roller coaster fashion.”   Congress will sign the bailout bill; they won’t sign the bail out bill.

Retail is down, and manufacturing is down.  As for the housing market don’t even ask.   The one difference between our current economy and a roller coaster ride, at least with a roller coaster you know when the ride is over.   With our economy, clearly no one knowns nothing, to borrow a phrase.

So if you are in business, the one thing you want to know is are your clients in good enough shape to actually pay you.   It’s one thing to sign new accounts, and it is quite another to be reasonably sure they will pay your bills.   We all know what a pain it is to chase down accounts, dunning them for unpaid bills.

At Corra we suggest conducting corporate research with your background checks.   We are now offering business credit reports where we can provide you with fresh reports on literally millions of companies around the world.   Again, these are not database reports, but conducted fresh with current information.

So before you get into a business arrangement you wish you stayed out of, order business credit and financial reports from Corra.   Whether you are retaining a domestic client or planning on shipping your goods and services overseas, you would want these reports. These business  credit reports are detailed and with comprehensive information.  the cost is reasonable, and it may save you a whole bunch of money in the long run.

Check them out before you hire.