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It would seem to be impossible — or at least quite a challenge — to drive revenue and sales in a down economy, particularly in one as tenacious as this one. But one company has an especially fitting way to make sure sales rise in an economic downturn: sell a product everybody wants to get at a discount; a commodity product that is well-made and will last for years; a second-hand product. Network Hardware Resale ( NHR ) a family-owned company based in Santa Barbara, CA has built a significant and long-term business out of selling routers, servers, IP telephony, security, optical networking products… you name it, if it’s mission critical networking gear, NHR probably has it — at a steep discount. NHR loves selling products made by Cisco principally because Cisco is a top-dog brand in this space so it’s products are asked for by name; their gear is well-made; and last for years after a high-tech startup may be forced to fold. This too-regular scenario would be NHR’s cue to swoop in, make the purchase and pass on the savings to another startup, an ISP or Fortune 1000 corporation. In 2001, Mike Sheldon was a trader in derivatives and decided to go back to the company his father started in 1986. Chuck Sheldon originally re-sold IBM midrange computers and was, interestingly, the former Mayor of Hermosa Beach, CA. “This is the second downturn our company has been through,” Mike Sheldon said, “the first was the dot-com bubble. ’01 was a tricky year for us, and my contribution right after coming back to NHR was getting some systems installed in the company, IT systems mainly.” At the time, NHR revenues were $20 million which doubled every year to 2004 when revenue hit $80 million. 2010 NHR revenues were $230 million… impressive for a family business. With offices in California, the Netherlands and Singapore, NHR is the world’s largest reseller of pre-owned network equipment. Sheldon says one reason is because of NHR’s 1 year advance warranty and what he calls “great customer service.” I get that; when businesspeople buy mission-critical but second-hand equipment, a warranty is crucial, as is the response time of the vendor service. In addition to selling Cisco products about 75 percent of the time, NHR also carries Force10 (now Dell), Juniper, Brocade/Foundry and Extreme gear, amongst others. “Cisco and the others make a great product,” Sheldon said, “a customer can get a couple of hundred thousand hours out of this hardware or 25 years. There’s a long usable life to these products.” “All parts of your network are not equal,” said Sheldon, “security and VOIP have got to be current.” NHR sales are approximately 50 percent servers, 30 percent routers, 10 percent VOIP and 10 percent security, Sheldon estimated. Some of NHR’s customers come to them when they have a meltdown or are in emergency-status. All of them come looking to reduce costs when buying a key bit of hardware. To illustrate the good service Sheldon described above, he told a brief story. Apparently a customer prospect in Arizona had been receiving regular calls from an NHR salesman and always managed to fend him off handily. The salesman tried everything. Finally he gave up. Well, one day at 5 p.m., the salesman receives a call from the same prospect he’d always been trying to get to buy, and things were not good on the prospect side. “I’m down,” the desperate prospect moaned, “my whole network is down. I need it.” Sheldon finished, “I have to hand it to ‘im,” he recalled, “my sales guy threw four routers into the trunk of his car and drove them from Santa Barbara to Arizona to the near-insane customer.” Of course, after that valiant effort, the salesman, Sheldon and NHR had a customer for life.

The iPhone maker spends lavishly on all stages of the manufacturing process, giving it a huge operations advantage

By Mitch Lipka (Reuters) – If you are looking for a way to rebel against big banks, you could just sit on your couch and scan a few checks. How is that making a statement? Once you can easily scan a check and deposit it, do you really need to stick with a bank just because it has a branch in your neighborhood? The technological advance of smartphone scanning breaks down one of the last barriers to easy bank switching. As the practice spreads, there may be no stopping upstarts from cutting into the deposits of major banks. The idea of switching out of big banks to smaller ones has morphed into its very own day: November 5 is Bank Transfer Day (see www.facebook.com/NovemberFifth). It was launched by Los Angeles art gallery owner Kristen Christian to encourage folks to pull their money from big banks in protest of their policies, from mortgage lending practices to the repayment of TARP funds to a constant array of new fees. “Seriously, who likes going to branches? It’s much more convenient to either mail checks or use cutting-edge mobile deposit technology,” asks former Capital One executive Dan O’Malley, who is now CEO of PerkStreet Financial, one such small financial institution. Mailing checks for deposit to operations like PerkStreet, State Farm Bank, ING Direct or a distant credit union has long been an option, but the growth and acceptance of deposit by phone could be a game-changer for many consumers, O’Malley and others say. USAA Bank has been accepting scanned check deposits for years. It caters to mobile military families but also offers banking services to the general public, “In addition to reducing costs associated with mailing checks, mobile-based remote deposit makes it infinitely more convenient for customers to get money into their online-only accounts at branchless banks,” O’Malley says. Security experts say there is no particular concern to making deposits via a smart phone app. The main issue is being sure to take basic precautions with your phone, says Joseph Steinberg, CEO of the IT firm Green Armor Solutions. “You should have security software on your smartphone. You should have the capabilities to do an anti-malware check,” Steinberg says. Of course, using a phone to deposit a check isn’t exclusive to upstarts. In addition to USAA Bank, which has but a handful of locations, big banks including JPMorgan Chase have since joined in. Brian Ruby of Stratford, Connecticut, uses the Chase app. “It’s very easy: endorse the check, launch the app, snap a couple pictures, confirm the numbers, wait for an email saying it’s good and shred it,” he says. “I don’t get checks very often, and when I would they would sit around for a long time since I seldom visit a branch, so now I’m much quicker on deposits.” Depositing a check by mail is riskier scenario than a deposit by phone app, Steinberg says. Online banking through remote Internet-based financial institutions isn’t new, but is growing with deposit technology. At State Farm Bank, mobile check deposits are up 150 percent since January. Customers using the technology run the age gamut — nearly 45 percent of mobile check deposit customers are 36- to 55-years-old, the company says. In case you’re concerned about the security of your online bank, check to see if your funds will be FDIC insured. State Farm, PerkStreet (through Bancorp Bank) and ING, for example, all are FDIC members. Being a revolutionary is one thing. But doing without that government deposit guarantee? That’s revolting in a different way. The author is a Reuters contributor. The opinions expressed are his own. (Editing by Lauren Young and Beth Gladstone) Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions .

NEW YORK — Folk music legend Pete Seeger and `60s folk singer Arlo Guthrie joined Occupy Wall Street demonstrators Friday in their campaign against corporate greed while residents near the protest park encampment pushed to regain some peace and quiet in their neighborhood. Seeger joined in the Occupy Wall Street protest Friday night, replacing his banjo with two canes as he marched with throngs of people in New York City’s tony Upper West Side past banks and shiny department stores. The 92-year-old Seeger, accompanied by musician-grandson Tao Rodriguez Seeger, composer David Amram, and bluesman Guy Davis, shouted out the verses of protest anthems as the crowd of about 1,000 people sang and chanted. They marched peacefully over more than 30 blocks from Symphony Space, where the Seegers and other musicians performed, to Columbus Circle. Police watched from the sidelines. Occupy Wall Street began a month ago in lower Manhattan among a few young people, and has grown to tens of thousands around the country and the world. A recent Associated Press-GfK poll says more than one-third of the country supports the Wall Street protesters, and even more – 58 percent – say they are furious about America’s politics. But the encampment at Zuccotti Park has become more than a tolerable nuisance, some neighborhood residents say. At a meeting Thursday, they complained of protesters urinating in the streets and beating drums in the middle of the night. Some called for the protesters to vacate the park. The area’s community board voted unanimously for a resolution that recognized the protesters’ First Amendment rights while calling for a crackdown on noise and public urination and defecation. U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and state Sen. Daniel Squadron said in a statement that the resolution was “an attempt to establish a sensible framework that respects the protesters’ fundamental rights while addressing the very real quality of life concerns for residents and businesses around Zuccotti Park.” Asked about Occupy Wall Street on WOR Radio on Friday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the protesters’ leaderless structure has made it difficult to negotiate with them. Occupy Wall Street spokesman Han Shan, who has served as a liaison between protesters and local elected officials, agreed the protesters needed to be better neighbors. Shan, who attended the meeting, promised to limit the noise. At Columbus Circle, Seeger and friends walked to the chant of “We are the 99 percent” and “We are unstoppable; another world is possible.” Seeger stopped to bang a metal statue of an elephant with his cane – to cheers from the crowd. At the center of the plaza, Seeger and Amram were joined by Guthrie in a round of “We Shall Overcome,” a protest anthem made popular by Seeger. After more singing, Seeger asked for a mic check to tell the crowd: “The words are simple: I could be happy spending my days on the river that flows both way-ay-ays.” During the march, the younger Seeger, in troubadour fashion like his grandfather, walked among the protesters playing songs. Amra took up a flute and others enlivened the night protest with the sounds of the accordion, banjos, and guitars. At the front of the throng, marchers held American flags and a large blue flag that said: “Revolution Generation … Debt is Slavery.” Along the way, the crowd sang protest songs made popular or written by Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and others of the protest era. ___(equals) Associated Press writer Karen Matthews contributed to this report.

A new Gallup poll estimates that unhealthy workers cost businesses $153 billion a year in lost productivity. Nearly 110,000 full-time employees were surveyed, self-reporting their height, weight and chronic medical conditions. According to the poll, only about one in seven employees — 13.9 percent of the workforce — is of normal weight with no chronic condition, logging an average of just .34 unhealthy days per month, or 4 sick days per year. Those who were overweight or obese but who had no chronic conditions reported an average .36 unhealthy days per month. But the more than 30 percent of the population who reported being overweight or obese with one to two chronic conditions missed an average of 1.08 days per month due to poor health, adding up to over $32 billion in lost productivity. Those who said they were overweight or obese with three or more chronic conditions recorded over 3 unhealthy days per month, averaging 42 days per year and totaling $81 billion in losses. The study took into account several chronic conditions, including whether the subject had a heart attack, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cancer, diabetes, asthma, depression and reoccurring physical pain in the neck, back, knee or leg for the last 12 months. Surprisingly, the total cost of lost productivity in the U.S. — $153 billion — is four times greater than in the U.K., where 20 percent of the full-time workforce is healthy. The studies’ authors claim that the estimated $153 billion loss is actually much greater due to factors not included in the poll, including the health of part-time workers and the “presenteeism” issue, in which an employee goes to work but is less productive due to poor health. Another study conducted by the Milken Institute broadens the factors by including other chronic disorders, and in turn reports that ill health actually costs employers $1.1 trillion annually, while $277 billion is spent on treatment. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics , private industries with fewer than 100 employees provided workers with an average of 6 paid sick days, costing private firms 23 cents per employee for every hour worked. However, this average only accounts for recorded sick days and does not take into account the cost of employee presenteeism and limited productivity.

Americans’ ability to access basic life necessities are at recession lows. And the country likely won’t catch up with pre-recession incomes for a long time. Gallup’s Basic Necessities Index fell to a level on bar with lows measured in February and March 2009 . At the same time, the U.S. median income declined 7 percent in the past decade and although economists predict incomes will rise in the next 10 years, the growth won’t be enough to get incomes back to pre-recession levels, according to the Wall Street Journal . High levels of unemployment and plummeting home values have battered Americans’ incomes, making it increasingly difficult for them to get access to basic necessities like food, healthcare and shelter. Nearly 20 percent of Americans say they’ve had trouble putting food on the table in the past 12 months , according to another recent Gallup poll. And while incomes dropped during the recession, the recovery has only exacerbated that trend. Between December 2007 and June 2009, U.S. incomes fell 3.2 percent , while during the recovery between June 2009 and June 2011 incomes dropped 6.7 percent, a recent study from former Census Bureau officials found. Even as incomes fall, companies are still squeezing as much they can out of workers. Profits per employee went up for the second year in a row last year, according to financial analysis firm Sageworks. Employers’ ability to get the most of their employees may be one reason the income gap between the wealthy and everyone else continues to grow. The total net worth of the bottom 60 percent of U.S. households is less than that of Forbes 400 richest Americans. And like the economists, Americans don’t expect their situation to improve any time soon. Nine out of 10 Americans say they don’t anticipate that they’ll get a raise that will be enough to compensate for the rising costs of food and fuel, a recent American Pulse survey found. A gauge of U.S. consumer expectations fell to its lowest level in 30 years on concerns about declining incomes , according to the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment released Friday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An overseas corporate profit repatriation tax holiday could boost consumption and U.S. tax revenues even if companies decide to return cash to shareholders, according to a new study published on Thursday. The report, from the nonpartisan New America Foundation and co-authored by Laura D’Andrea Tyson, an economic adviser to President Bill Clinton, is the latest in a series of analyses judging the pros and cons of the corporate tax break. A repatriation holiday would allow companies to bring offshore profits back to the U.S. at a tax rate much lower than the statutory 35 percent corporate income tax. The growing list of competing studies pits businesses with large pools of profits abroad against detractors who worry a repatriation holiday will encourage companies to hold profits overseas until the political winds shift in their favor. In 2004-2005, corporations had a repatriation holiday allowing them to return profits to the U.S. at a 5.25 percent tax rate. Analysts studying this tax break generally agree that proceeds were used by companies to buy back shares and that the holiday ultimately cost more than it collected in tax revenue. The New America Foundation study said firms that will spend their repatriated cash face two choices: spend it internally or return it to shareholders. Both choices will grow the economy, the report said. In all, the spending could increase gross domestic product by $178 billion to $336 billion and will add 1.3 million to 2.5 million jobs, the report estimates. When companies return cash to shareholders, it will likely be wealthy Americans who will benefit and start spending, the report said. About $581 billion in after-tax dividends will be distributed to U.S. shareholders. “Based on the distribution in equity holdings among U.S. shareholders, this consumption will be skewed toward higher income U.S. households, but it will nonetheless stimulate aggregate demand,” the authors said. Tax revenues generated from repatriated cash could be used to finance job creation measures “such as the creation of an infrastructure bank,” like the one proposed by President Barack Obama in his jobs bill, the report said. Democratic Senator Kay Hagan applauded the study on Thursday in a statement. Hagan has sponsored a bill with Republican Senator John McCain that would tax at 8.75 percent corporate profits returned to the U.S. Firms could reduce the tax rate to 5.25 percent if they expand their U.S. payrolls by 10 percent in 2012. Businesses would face a $75,000 fine for every job cut during the holiday period, under the Hagan-McCain bill. (Reporting by Patrick Temple-West; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Tim Dobbyn)

Update: To borrow a phrase from the Beatles, we all want to change the world. A few of us actually do. Rest in Peace Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was the brilliant exception to a billion rules. He was an actual corporate hero. A visionary. A game changer. An actual genius in a world full of flashier faux pretenders to that throne. I never met the man, but once insanely turned down a chance to go to Cupertino and discuss working for him because clearly — in retrospect — I am a total idiot. To be precise, I am an idiot who’s writing these words on his fifteenth straight Mac computer, having gone to bed listening to my tenth iPod as my wife reluctantly put down her second iPad. So here’s a playlist saluting someone who was the actual smartest guy in the room, in any room that was lucky enough to have him there. As always, please add your own songs below. REVOLUTION – The Beatles TO SIR WITH LOVE – Lulu MACK DADDY – Sir Mix-A-Lot COMPUTER AGE – Neil Young THE BOSS – James Brown COMPUTER WORLD – Krafwerk Anything by Fleetwood MAC APPLE TREES – Eels ONLINE – Brad Paisley ONE MORE BITE OF THE APPLE – Neil Diamond BIG APPLE – Molly Hatchet COMPUTER BLUE – Prince Takin’ Care Of Business – BTO DO THE EVOLUTION – Pearl Jam APPLE SCRUFFS – George Harrison COME BITE THE APPLE – Mother Love Bone WHIP-SMART – Liz Phair GENIUS OF LOVE – Tom Tom Club DO WHAT YOU WANT, BE WHO YOU ARE – Hall & Oates THE GOLDEN APPLE – Bob James ONE VISION – Queen JUST MY IMAGINATION – The Temptations INTERNET CONNECTION – M.I.A. EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD – Tears For Fears IN THE SHADE OF THE OLD APPLE TREE – Louis Armstrong & The Mills Brothers DO YOU LOVE AN APPLE – The Secret Sisters LITTLE GREEN APPLES – O.C. Smith BANG ON THE DRUM – Todd Rundgren JUNE APPLE – Mudcrutch YOU’RE THE BEST – Joe Esposito HUMAN AFTER ALL – Daft Punk SO NICE SO SMART – Kimya Dawson MAC THE KNIFE – Bobby Darin SCRAPPLE FROM THE APPLE – Charlie Parker DON’T SIT UNDER THE APPLE TREE – The Glenn Miller Orchestra APPLE JUMP – Dexter Gordon PASS THE APPLE EVE – B.J. Thomas

By Tom Miles GENEVA (Reuters) – Forty-two countries are close to agreeing an upgrade of their Global Procurement Agreement (GPA), a reform that could unlock tens of billions of dollars of commercial opportunities, and many times more if China gets on board, trade sources said on Monday. The GPA, a voluntary agreement within the World Trade Organization, opens a wide spectrum of public contracts in member countries to bidders from other members, improving competition and efficiency as well as providing massive new markets in areas such as infrastructure and transport. By upgrading the existing 1996 agreement, its members hope to bring their rules into the internet age, deepen market access and offer special treatment for developing countries, which could persuade China to join — as it has committed to do at some stage — and bring in a vast new pool of contracts. “We think the prospects of concluding the negotiation by the time of the ministerial meeting in December are pretty good,” said a trade official involved in the GPA negotiations who declined to be named because the talks are confidential. The European Union still had some disagreements with Japan and the United States and it was likely those issues needed a push from politicians rather than technical tweaks at the WTO in Geneva, another trade official said. But he added that all three parties were looking at “creative” solutions and understood the importance of striking a deal by the end of this year. “Things are positive,” he said. WINDOW FOR DEAL CLOSING However, member governments have been warned that the window for a deal is rapidly closing. Last week, Nicholas Niggli, the chairman of the WTO committee on government procurement warned that agreement was needed urgently, since the stakes were huge and the time for a deal was now or never. “The gains in market access will result in significant commercial opportunities for parties’ companies, representing many tens of billions of dollars/euros annually,” he told the committee, according to a text of his remarks which was circulated to member governments and later obtained by Reuters. “It would be extremely short-sighted to jeopardize these benefits for the sake of a continued struggle amongst ourselves to eke out a few additional incremental gains at the margin,” he told the committee, since other were lining up to join. Gains from accessing those new markets would be many times greater than gains from upgrading the existing deal, he said. China is expected to make a revised offer to join the club just before the ministerial meeting in December, which could extend its offer of market access to provinces and may even include some state-owned enterprises, trade officials said. Other potential members include Ukraine, Vietnam and Russia, which has been asked to commit to joining the GPA as part of its negotiations to join the WTO, according to a trade official who had seen the draft agreement with Russia. India is also exploring possible membership, a trade official said. And several Gulf Arab countries already have GPA-compatible rules, which means they could swiftly join. If the GPA members reach agreement, it would rescue trade ministers from a potentially embarrassing WTO meeting in December, since the 153 members have failed to clinch a deal on the Doha round of talks aimed at further liberalizing trade. One official said the GPA talks, which had also taken 10 years so far, stood a better chance of success than Doha because they involved “a coalition of the willing” rather than the full WTO membership. (Reporting by Tom Miles)