Originally Posted by SwampYankee

They should. Apparently unless they are too big to fail or as a result of crony capitalism or corporatism. We small and medium business owners do. Sure, if we go under our employees stand to lose their jobs but that is the extent of their risk. We owners shoulder all of the risk. Many of us pour our compensation back into the business when times are tough. We (our company) take a great amount of pride in the fact that we have not laid anybody off, cut back in benefits (despite a 20% cost increase over the past two years), cut back on Christmas bonuses or reduced anyone's hours. Yet there is still grumbling and discontent from our hourly employees because there haven't been any raises in two years. Me? I've reduced my compensation by almost 25% to keep things at a comfortable level, business-wise certainly not personally. They're still gainfully employed, with a better benefits package than our state employees and getting paid the same as they have been. We could certainly make-do with one or two less of them, but that wouldn't sit well with us. Yet we're still the cheap bad guys who won't give them a raise.


Profit is the reward. And when there is profit left at the end of the fiscal year, we're going to take a chunk of it. If there's a larger chunk, we give them percentage larger bonuses and profit-sharing contributions.


But Washington is able to call a reduction of an increase a cut? While it's such a crazy number for me to try to get a grasp on, it does make a big difference where that $750 million number comes from. Is that net? Gross? EBITDA?