Small Business Reading Room

Friday, October 21, 2005

High workers compensation rates keep Delaware mired mid-pack

Delaware is ranked 24th in the nation on the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council's small business survival index, 2005 (pdf).

The Delaware Legislature is taking a stab at reforming the laws governing Workers Comp., as it is known. The Insurance Commissioner is to begin hearings on this matter next week (not that you would know it from his website). It remains to be seen if the new laws will make any difference.

Low property taxes have helped, but a relatively high corporate income tax for companies doing business in Delaware keep our State mired at the 24th spot.

posted by Larry at 3:58 PM - permalink 0 comments

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Delaware Monthly Register of Regulations

It is once again time for the Delaware Register of Regulations. The register is now available in .pdf format or .html format.

posted by Anonymous at 4:16 PM - permalink 0 comments

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

The 19th Annual Executive Strategic Planning Conference

Each year the Secretary of State and Division of Corporations hosts strategic planning conference for those involved in the incorporation industry.

This year's conference is being held on October 19th, 20th and 21st.

The Executive Strategic Planning Conference is a time for Delaware registered agents and State officials to get together and discuss a variety of matters, including the previous year's events and where we are headed in the future as an industry.

Here's a look at the draft agenda for this year's conference:

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Welcome - 11:00 a.m.
The Honorable John C. Carney, Jr., Lt. Governor

Opening Remarks - 12:45 p.m.
The Honorable Harriet Smith Windsor,

Session I - 1:15 p.m.
Old, New, and Future Business

Session II - 3:00 p.m.
Filing Compliancy

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Session III - 9:00 a.m.
Section Updates – Division of Corporations

Session IV - 10:15 a.m.
Technology Updates – Division of Corporations

Guest Speaker - 11:00 a.m.
Norman Monhait
“Draft Legislation on Registered Agents and Contact Information”

Guest Speaker - 1:00 p.m.
Matt Denn
Insurance Commissioner
“Captive Insurance and Other Matters”

Guest Speaker - 1:30 p.m.
Norman Powell
Morris, James, Hitchens & Williams
“An Update on the UCC”

Guest Speaker - 2:15 p.m.
Ozzie Stalworth
National Notary Association
“e-Notarization and e-Apostille”

Session V - 3:30 p.m.
Filing Compliancy – cont’d

Session VI - 4:15 p.m.
Annual Report and Closing Remarks

Friday, October 21, 2005

Wrap-up - 9:30 a.m.

Delaware Intercorp looks forward to being represented at this event once again this year. We will update you in a later post on any interesting information that we learn at this year's conference.

In the meantime, if you have anything that you would like us to discuss at this year's conference, please call or e-mail us and we will contact our attendees and ask them to raise your questions or concerns.

posted by Unknown at 2:16 PM - permalink 0 comments

More privacy issues raised

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports they have cracked the Secret code that allows the government to track the origin of any document printed on some Xerox color printers.

The code is embedded in a series of very small yellow dots that print at the top of every page. The information contained includes the date and time of printing and the serial number of the printer.

The EFF believes a similar code may be found in documents printed by printers supplied by Canon, Epson, HP, IBM and Dell.

The blogosphere is alight with talk of this issue. Some are worried that DVD's, CD's and other electronic media may have similar codes embedded in them. And of course, this is old news in some sense. Copiers have done this kind of thing for quite some time. Color copiers were capable of fooling automated dollar bill machines as early as the eighties.

Since news of this went out on BNA's newsletter the EFF servers have been jammed. Expect the links above to be slow for some time.

posted by Larry at 10:50 AM - permalink 0 comments

Monday, October 17, 2005

Innovation, privacy and convenience

The Missouri Department of Transportation is working with a company called Delcan to develop a statewide traffic monitoring system that uses cellphone signal information to track traffic movement.

This company is providing this same service in Maryland already - although without the public access component they envision in Missouri.

This is an amazing technology that unfortunately relies upon tracking your cellphone signal as it moves from cell tower to cell tower. According to ABC News Online:

"Even though its anonymous, it's still ominous," said Daniel Solove, a privacy law professor at George Washington University and author of "The Digital Person." "It troubles me, because it does show this movement toward using a technology to track people."

The convergence of some technological trends (massive electronic storage, Google maps and similar web API's, increased cellphone capability and use) will present us with more privacy challenges as time goes on. How will these challenges be decided? In Congress? In the marketplace? In corporate board rooms?
And, for investors, who will profit most from these developments?

posted by Larry at 10:12 AM - permalink 0 comments

Sunday, October 16, 2005

House Republicans Push for Budget Cuts

The CATO Institute sent out a notice today that the blogger pressure to enact budget cuts in the wake of Katrina/Rita is working. (See prior post)

House Republican leaders have moved from balking at big cuts in Medicaid and other programs to embracing them, driven by pent-up anger from fiscal conservatives concerned about runaway spending and the leadership's own weakening hold on power, according to The Washington Post.

The article continues: Beginning this week, the House GOP lawmakers will take steps to cut as much as $50 billion from the fiscal 2006 budget for health care for the poor, food stamps and farm supports, as well as considering across-the-board cuts in other programs. Only last month, then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) and other GOP leaders quashed demands within their party for budget cuts to pay for the soaring cost of hurricane relief.

In Bush Beats Johnson: Comparing the Presidents (.pdf) published in the Cato's Tax and Budget Bulletin, Cato's director of budget studies Stephen Slivinski uses revised data released during the summer by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to make side-by-side comparisons of the spending habits of each president during the last 40 years. While the data show that all presidents presided over net increases in spending, President Bush is shown to be one of the biggest spenders of them all, even outpacing Lyndon B. Johnson in terms of discretionary spending.

posted by Larry at 1:39 PM - permalink 0 comments

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