Jim Blasingame

Business futurist, award-winning author, speaker and columnist

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Government / Politics

The New Regular: New PPP Rules You Need to Know

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This is the 21st edition of my New Regular series, which is devoted to helping your business survive and thrive to the other side of the weirdest year in the experience of any living person. Normal “put a lid” on itself around the end of March and hasn’t surfaced since.

Earlier this year, to capture what small businesses were going through in 2020, I coined the Three U’s of the Apocalypse: an Unprecedented coronavirus pandemic, precipitating an Unprecedented economic shutdown, necessitating Unprecedented direct government assistance. What follows is a report on changes to the terms of that assistance.

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As the CARES Act was signed into law by President Trump on March 27, I posted a preview of the most likely way your business would be impacted by it. A few months later, I updated that information with the new terms of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

So, it’s now time to update that update, with new PPP forgiveness and repayment rules. We’ll span from the old rules to the new, including what you’re expected to do and when you’re expected to do it. My purpose here is to make you better informed when talking with your banker and financial advisor to wrap up these transactions. But first, 60-seconds of history.

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The Presidential Candidates’ Record on Small Business – Part II

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As noted in Part I, prior to every presidential election since 2000, I’ve compared the two major-party presidential candidates based on their performance and promises regarding top small business concerns.  Part I of this two-part series covered the economy, taxes, and regulations. Part II covers health care, entrepreneurship, energy, and the pandemic.

Mr. Biden regularly references his direct contribution to Obama administration policies: “I’m the guy who … “ is the prefix of statements lauding his accomplishments from 2009-2016.  Since he’s running on that record, we’ll follow Mr. Biden’s lead and attribute that two-term record to him.

As also noted in Part I, small business owners don’t have to like a customer or vendor to do business with them. Main Street operators favor performance over personality. As our grandmothers would say, “The proof’s in the pudd’n.”

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The Presidential Candidates’ Record on Small Business, Part I

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As a leading voice for the small business sector, part of my advocacy is to track and report on public policy that impacts the Main Street economy. In that role, I vociferously support those issues that benefit small business and pugnaciously oppose those that don’t, regardless of political party paternity.

Since 1997, I’ve stuck my finger in the eye of Presidents and Congresses of both parties for policies that hurt – or didn’t do enough to help – the heroes who create half of the U.S. GDP and sign half of the paychecks that support over 100 million Americans.

Prior to every presidential race since 2000, I’ve compared the policies and performance of the two major party presidential candidates based on the top concerns that keep small business owners up at night. This is the first of a two-part series on my 2020 analysis of seven issues that currently find their way to the top of every small business survey. Part I covers the economy, taxes, and regulations. Part II will cover healthcare, entrepreneurship, energy, and the pandemic.

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The New Regular: The Three U’s of the Apocalypse

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This is the seventh edition of my New Regular series, which is devoted to how small businesses have been impacted by the coronavirus shutdown.

In barely more than the lifespan of a housefly, we’ve been extruded through a pandemic wormhole, from a place called normal into a new reality devoid of that concept. Along the way, the orbit of our lives has been altered by the rude gravity of what I call the “Three U’s of the Apocalypse”:

  • an Unprecedented coronavirus pandemic,
  • precipitating an Unprecedented economic shutdown,
  • necessitating Unprecedented direct government assistance.

Regarding that last U, it’s time for a 90-day update, including new rules and offerings.

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America celebrates liberty and the world is the beneficiary

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Seven score and seventeen years ago, in his inspired speech at the 1863 dedication of the Gettysburg Cemetery, President Lincoln delivered these immortal words: “…our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Four score and seven years earlier, one of those “fathers,” an inspired Thomas Jefferson (with suggestions from no less an able editor than Ben Franklin), authored what is arguably the most momentous secular document in history. The second paragraph of America’s Declaration of Independence begins with this passionate passage:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

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Defunding police will hurt America’s small businesses

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No other single group does more to benefit America than Main Street businesses. And no other has a greater stake in the stability of their communities.

Small business owners anchor thousands of communities by producing half of the U.S. economy, creating jobs and signing millions of paychecks every week, building things you can hold, delivering customized service you can see, and leading with class. President Kennedy had something to say about that last thing: “Class is grace under pressure.”

Surely, JFK was thinking of a small business owner, because no one scratched their head when Gallup reported public admiration for small business owners as number two out of 15 groups. They were right under the armed forces, immediately followed in third place by – the police. By the way, the “media” and Congress are on the bottom – 14 and 15 respectively. Just saying …

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