"Lifting their dreams by the bootstraps" by Scott Kirsner | March 22, 2009
.... Scrappy entrepreneurs - call them bootstrappers - don't care much if the Dow is down, if consumer spending is stagnant, or if banks aren't lending. They're obsessed by a vision of the business they want to build and motivated by the allure of controlling their own destiny, which helps them ignore barriers that would stop most mortals....
Yes, motivated by the allure of controlling your own destiny -- which means you don't actually control it (the banks will do that for you) -- is the MODERN SUPERMAN, huh?
Massachusetts is lucky to have a high density of bootstrappers....
The pandering pablum is a bit much, wouldn't you say?
One thing bootstrappers have in common is they can find clever ways to raise money....
Figuring out how to develop products without hiring lots of employees is another key bootstrapper strategy.
Oh, well, THAT is REALLY going to HELP the ECONOMY, huh? You see what I mean by OFFENSIVE, AGENDA-PUSHING INSULTS, readers? What a stink paper is the Boston Globe!
Jason Jacobs is the only full-time employee of FitnessKeeper Inc., which makes a popular iPhone application that runners use to keep track of routes and distance; the other eight team members work day jobs or juggle consulting gigs....
Yeah, it's OKAY if EMPLOYEES have NO JOB SECURITY and are SCRAMBLING ABOUT just to get by!!! Have YOU -- never mind me -- had ENOUGH of the BG's insults, folks?
So few businesspeople are visibly passionate about what they do. Bootstrappers say that letting others know that they're driven by something more than just the need for a paycheck can generate surprising results.
Then I'll take it if you don't want it.
"If you are clearly excited about your idea, and you're working to make it happen, a lot of times people will say, 'I may not be interested in investing, but let me introduce you to someone else' - or they want to help you in some other way," says Selkoe.
Yeah, never mind something like 7 out of 10 new businesses failing. No need for troublesome research there, right, Globe?
Selkoe has come a long way in the decade since he left his job as an urban planner at the Boston Redevelopment Authority to devote more time to the growing business he'd started on the side (and finish a graduate degree at Harvard).
Oh, so he's an ELITE STATE HACK, huh? Yeah, that's the example the agenda-pushers would want in their paper, isn't it?
Earlier this month, he was the sole Bostonian invited to the White House for a summit of 25 young business leaders.
More agenda-pushing garbage. Whoo-pee!
--more--"
Wanna see the workers the Globe cares about?
"Union workers take to streets to protest layoffs of janitors" by Kathy McCabe, Globe Staff | March 22, 2009
Bedardo Sola left El Salvador 10 years ago, hoping to find a good job and medical services for his wife and 4-month old daughter.
Now Sola, laid off from his job as a contract janitor at Harvard University, said he worries how he will pay for the operation his wife needs to save her sight.
"My family is the most important thing to me," Sola, 42, said in Spanish through a translator. "I felt so proud working at the most prestigious university in the world. Now I worry."
Sola joined an estimated 1,000 union workers and supporters yesterday who marched from Boston Common to Copley Square, to protest the layoffs of janitors and other service workers in Greater Boston.The Service Employees Union International Local 615 in Boston, which represents contract janitors at Harvard and downtown office buildings, organized the 90-minute rally and march.
"Today we want to send a message across Boston," Rocio Saenz, president of Local 615, said at the late-morning rally. "For a long time, many of the businesses [downtown] have enjoyed the prosperity. They have enjoyed the benefits that workers have not."
The janitors' layoffs are reflective of what other lower-wage workers are facing in the recession, Saenz said. "We need to get the message out to the business community that they cannot balance their books on the backs of workers," Saenz said in an interview during the march.
Union workers and supporters pledged to stand together, as they marched past empty office buildings, holding signs and chanting "Si Se Peude," or "Yes You Can." One message - "Don't act out of fear" - was aimed at Harvard Real Estate Services and at corporations the union says oppose the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill pending in Congress that would make it easier for unions to organize.
Sola is one of eight janitors laid off March 16. Another round of layoffs is expected April 1, the union said. The janitors are not Harvard employees; they work for unionized companies that have custodial contracts with Harvard. To control costs, the university has reduced the number of its vendor contracts, Kevin Galvin, a university spokesman, said in an e-mail.
In the statement, Galvin said the reductions were "a necessary step in response to the unprecedented fiscal challenges that we are facing at Harvard."
The university, like many others, has suffered steep losses to its endowment amid a meltdown on Wall Street. The endowment, which was $36.9 billion last June, lost at least 22 percent in the fall, and is expected to drop further, according to past Globe articles.
Harvard froze salaries for faculty and staff this year, offered early retirement to 1,600 workers, and is reviewing major construction projects, Galvin said.
Sola worked for a company called OneSource, which is owned by
"We constantly evaluate whether such individuals can be deployed among our other worksites," Tony Mitchell, vice president of corporate communications wrote in an e-mail. "We will continue to communicate with the union and remain wholly committed to maintaining a constructive dialogue in the mutual best interests of employees and customers alike."
Sola said he earned $17 per hour cleaning the Peabody Terrace complex at Harvard. He received 100 percent healthcare coverage, but those benefits stopped when he was laid off, he said.
Maybe I should look into swabbing toilets, 'eh? I MADE LESS when I was working at the factory!!!
He said he understands the university has lost money, but noted "The buildings are still open," he said, sporting a Red Sox coat and a purple SEIU flag. "I'm fighting for my job."
Yeah, and they are still sitting on $30 BILLION -- of which only about $2 billion goes for operations. But Harvard don't have money and is crying poverty.
Yeah, that's the ONE UNION the GLOBE LIKES -- a bunch of swabbers cleaning up richer shit!!!
Immigrants, illegals, it's always the same old song and dance down at the BG, folks.
Also see: The Boston Globe Insults the Unemployed
