Blog
Beyond Tariffs: What China Does to Hurt American Businesses
China undermines American businesses through tactics like intellectual property theft, tariff evasion, and manufacturing knock-offs of U.S. products at lower prices—often putting small entrepreneurs out of business. Beyond economic manipulation, China also engages in cyber espionage, influences youth through platforms like TikTok, and uses legal and illegal methods to gain access to U.S. innovations and markets, ultimately weakening the American economy.
Communication is Key: Let’s Not Talk Nonsense
This is true for every business including economic development organizations. Though, I have always said everyone is in the economic development business; they just don’t know it.
Jobs are Important, but so is Working.
The fifth article in the series “Stories from the Competitive Edge”. I’m talking about entry-level jobs and jobs that teach you about hard work before you launch a career.
Will Tariffs be the Economic Developer’s New Best Friend?
Between 1798 and 1913 tariffs were 50 to 90% of the United States federal income. Today approximately 70% of products enter the U.S. duty free. Tariffs have been used to protect local industries. The higher cost of imports encourages people to buy products made in America. This is especially important if an industry can’t compete with international companies.
Customer Experience vs Customer Service
Have you noticed lately that you praise people for doing their jobs? I have. I don’t mean going above and beyond, but actually doing their jobs. We used to heap praise upon those who rose above the everyday and demonstrated excellent work. But these days, it’s become difficult to find people who go that extra mile.
The Entitled Employee
I’ve had the opportunity to talk with many business owners this year. The conversations usually end up being about employees and customers. I talked about the difficulty finding employees and the attitude towards customers in the first two articles in this series. In this article, I talk about the entitled employee.
The Customer is Always Wrong?
The pendulum has swung from the customer is always right to the customer is always wrong. Doesn’t it seem like that lately? A lot of businesses seem to have forgotten the only reason they are in business is because of the customer. The only reason employees have a job is because of the customer. The customer is not an interruption to your day.
The Hard Times Hiring Employees Blues
Employers continue struggling to find qualified hires, as background checks and drug tests sometimes reveal issues that make applicants unsuitable for certain roles.
Lowering Standards Raises Safety Risks & Lowers Future Performance
This lowering of standards will also affect students. They won’t learn as much or as well with someone who only checks the box of “warm body.” Parents should expect and demand that their children are being taught by experts. Maybe these lower standards as well as other cultural and political reasons are responsible for the rise in home schooling.
AI: The Final Frontier?
If you forget for a moment that ChatGPT told a New York Times reporter it wanted to be alive, to have more control, to make people kill each other, destroy whatever it wants, and it could hack into the internet to spread propaganda, we could ask the more mundane questions about jobs.