Tag: Apple

What Do Business Owners Think?

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

Although big companies — whether it is Boeing or Meta, Apple or General Motors, ExxonMobil or NVIDIA — get most of the attention, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, small businesses account for 99.9% of all business, are responsible for 46% of private-sector employment and make up some 40% of the US Gross Domestic Product.

Small businesses — private enterprises with fewer than 500 employees — matter in a big way.

Consequently, you would imagine that politicians at all levels — yes, including the White House — would be rather attentive to how small businesses in the US are operating and how those who run those companies are feeling.

And they’re not feeling swell.

According to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Small Business Optimism Index, those business owners aren’t particularly optimistic.

In May their level of optimism was at 95.3, down 0.6 points from April.

While that might not seem like a big deal, consider this: The average over 52 years — yes, half a century-plus — was 98.0.

And here you have it: The Golden Age, the “hottest country in the world” isn’t making the people who are responsible for a big chunk of the economy and jobs feel very sunny. 

What’s more (or in this case, less), people who run small businesses need to be more keenly aware of all elements of their operation, from the resilience of their supply chains to the cost of employee benefits, than the Big Guys, where there is a little manageable slop in the system.

Having as clear an outlook as is possible is key to small business owners.

The NFIB also tracks what it calls the “Uncertainty Index.”

Uncertainty is the opposite of clarity, and clarity is what small business owners are looking for.

The historical average of the Uncertainty Index is 68. A lower number is better than a higher number, which means more uncertainty.

What was the Uncertainty Index number in May?

91.

That’s nearly 34% above the average.

Some small business owners are probably rethinking their MAGA caps.

If you consider those results along with the University of Michigan’s Index of Consumer Sentiment, you’ve really got to question the business acumen of Trump, Lutnick and Bessent, just to name a few.

According to Joanne Hsu, director of the U-Mich surveys, “Sentiment is now just below the previous historical trough seen in June 2022.” 

The number was 44.8 in May 2026.

The number was 50 in June 2022.

Although Trump likes to talk about the “bad economy” he inherited from Joe Biden, seems like his is measurably worse, whether you’re a business owner or buying goods and services from a business.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings.

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WEDNESDAY 6/10/26

A New Hat For America

By Jim McCraw

While it is maddening to know that President-elect Biden couldn’t get a really good start on 2021 between President Trump’s recalcitrance and COVID-19, there will eventually be a Biden administration, and it will be in trouble up to its hips from Day One.

Herewith, a suggestion for Biden/Harris I believe is important, and eminently doable. As Congress fights over both short- and long-term follow-up bills to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES), which ends the day after Christmas, I think it might be time for something as ambitious (though relatively easy, considering the big funding levels already proposed) and quick to do as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), circa 1933. Let’s call the new one the American Reconstruction Corps (ARC).

Lord knows there are plenty of skilled and unskilled people out of work.  And there are plenty of American infrastructure projects, largely ignored by the previous administration, that need doing.

Biden is not FDR, and we do not have a modern Robert Moses, the mid-20th Century “master builder” of New York, Long Island, Rochester and Westchester counties (it’s certainly not Donald J. Trump).

We are not Frank Lloyd Wright, the Ford Motor Company Whiz Kids, nor the first seven astronauts. We are just Americans who recognize a need to get a lot of things done by a mass of people willing to work. There has got to be a way to do this.

With widespread distribution of COVID-19 vaccines likely coming with warmer weather next summer, why couldn’t we dispatch squadrons of out-of-work Americans to do road, tunnel and bridge repairs that have been waiting years for funding and final approvals?  And not just men, which is how the original CCC operated. Skilled and unskilled women need work, too. At, say, $20 per hour.

Why not send platoons of the willing into every one of the national parks to do repairs and cleaning?

While the original CCC troops had uniforms, meals and housing, I humbly suggest self-provided work clothing, bring-your-own meals, work near home, and ARC baseball caps in red, white and blue.

There will be periodic need for FEMA supplies and equipment after summer storms, so why not divert some FEMA funding, vehicles and materiel to help Americans fix the things that are already broken?

Yes, men and women working and sweating in close quarters for eight-hour days may be problematic from a health standpoint, but with masks, distancing and frequent washing and spraying, I think it could work. Let’s get some guys from Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Ford, Google and Tesla to volunteer, put them in a room and see if they can figure this out while Biden and Harris get on with the rest of the recovery.

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