We have a little over a year until Obamacare fully kicks in and I would be interested in your opinion in 3-4 years.

Well when I started being a landlord with 3 apartments and I was working at Lowes. Then I bought another house making 5 apartments. I didnt have any trouble keeping them all rented my tenents were all working. There was lots of jobs. So I bought another house now I have 8 apartments. 6 of my tenents are on SSI or SSD 1 is working and struggling to pay for basicly an effecincy apartment. The other cheap apartment is empty. Im talking cheap $425. for a nice one bedroom apartment. I think obamacare sucks for the poor people especially fast food and retail workers. They cut all their hours to less the 20 just so they wont have to buy the insurance. Now they work less and cant afford to live and pay rent.

Sure, if I'm still around be happy to. I also have friends who live where there is social healthcare and love it. I'm happy that we are getting things looked at on the healthcare end of things. I won't pretend I know the answers but from what I see some pretty smart people are laying out some ideas that to me at least looks a lot better than the old days.

I've shopped and shelled out health plans for employees so I might (might) be a fair judge. I really don't know the end answers ,but again I'm glad things are getting looked at closely. I also think that if something works we should let folks know and if something doesn't we should do the same. But we don't really know until we live through it and be a part of any society issue.

What I can tell you is this. Healthcare the past few years has broke the bank so I'm looking forward to the change. Also in case people do fall through the cracks there are volunteer healthcare clinics that are being setup that do an excellent job. For a brief period I needed to use one and it was outstanding. I know folks are screaming about this issue but with research there are ways if we take the time to seek them out that are easier than what people make things look like. I'm not wanting people in my personal life but my clinic took care of some pretty serious stuff for me at no charge. It was setup for folks who were making a certain income but got chopped by the economy and couldn't afford the high cost. This allowed me to pay for my employees healthcare and even though I could no longer afford mine because of the cost of theirs I still got my health needs met.

A lot of us employers went without pay and healthcare for a while (some still are) so we could keep as many of our people going as we could. It's just something we have to do if we want our business to be there when the tide turns. Anyway, finding this clinic 3 years ago when they opened saved the day for me and many others.

You know I've always said a lot of people complain because they are natural born complainers, but with a little research there is always a way to make it. Our country doesn't want us to fail, that's just drama queens kicking up what they do, and they will be doing it long after this issue is resolved and move on to the next.

I really do try looking at the positive and usually only get upset with people who create negative for negative sake. And just the fact that we are taking healthcare seriously after it being thrown around for so many years is a joy for me to see. Now if we could only create positive pills with no side effects.

"This allowed me to pay for my employees healthcare . . . even though I could no longer afford mine because of the cost of theirs."

If I were a religious person I'd say, "God bless you."

Maybe I will anyway.

Leigh, calm down.

I think there is blame to spread around to all of our elected officials...And it doesn't help that our nation has become so split and divided and after "blood."...I hope that there is a thorough investigation about the situation in Benghazi just like we had an investigation to find out what could have been done to prevent the 9-11 attacks...Mistakes were made in both cases. The difference is that Democrats didn't form a lynch mob and go after Bush and Cheney right after the attacks and deaths occured...But I'm all for transparency...Thousands of soldiers have lost their lives during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Where is the public outcry and outrage over all of the soldiers who have died? And all of the brain injuries and limbs that have been lost?...The deaths in Benghazi were tragic. And we need to learn from the mistakes that were made there...I'm glad that Obama ended the Iraq war. And I'm glad that he is winding down the war in Afghanistan so we won't have so many soldiers "at risk" and in "harm's way." Their lives are important too.

I keep reading crap like get real, wake up, calm down from folks who support the bs being fed the masses.

I say, get loud, get angry and promote a third party to get us out of the repub/dem monopoly.

Screw Barry. Screw lazy Libs. Screw the oBambytax.

I keep reading crap like get real, wake up, calm down from folks who support the bs being fed the masses.

I say, get loud, get angry and promote a third party to get us out of the repub/dem monopoly.

Screw Barry. Screw lazy Libs. Screw the oBambytax.

Leigh..I didn't participate in nasty slurs or vicious attacks against Bush when he was in office...This isn't my style...I'm always in favor of intelligent discussions. But when "bombs" and "spears" start flying back and forth in nasty and childish ways I want out!..I don't want to view politics as a sport because so many "real-life" issues and problems are at stake.

lets be real about things. I'm surprised that folks are so willing to blame the last 4 years for Americas problems. Those who do this need to do more than talk.

How many of you have businesses now? I'm not talking about those who have had businesses but those who like I have lived through this.

There are a lot of "facts" LOL being thrown around so here are mine.

From 1981 to 89 1 to 3 people, 1989 to 92 we (my biz) stayed around 4 to 7 employees. From 92 to 94 we increased to about 10. From 94 to 2000 we jumped to around 45 to 50. In 2000 we took a sharp turn downward to 19 and by 04 back down to 5. I crawled all the way down to 3 until 09 when we have been slowly climbing since, now at 11. There are always a lot of factors at play but if you want to align these numbers with presidents I have to say Barack has been a saving grace.

My distributors since around 2010 have been asking for new products again for the first time in a few years and now more than 2010, so yes, I see us on an incline again. Maybe with bigger companies it takes a lot longer and some of them are still on the decline from the 2000 to 2008 period but for me that period took the wind out of my business sails big time and honestly I didn't know if I would have ever recovered. Keep in mind though along with this my comeback was dependant on me making changes to business and getting out of old school habits. These habits I see as the same ones that companies that are struggling today still use and may even be part of the existing or remaining declines. From my point of view (these are only mine) I see old money wanting to hang on to what they have and see them fearful of a new country that is much more up to speed with the rest of the new world. Greed seems to be their only ambition. I see a new view though that wants to help bring the US back to an even playing field by pulling people of talent out of the poor and into the middle. This does not and will not happen over night cause we in the 2000 to 2008 period dug a hole that no one was transparent about from what I saw and experienced.

There are millions of stories out there and I'm sure they are all over the place on the blame game but honestly I never did think that things would get solved or even better in just 4 years. I'm being honest here. The hole that I saw in the early 20's was one I didn't think would get dug out of till after I was dead and gone. It looked like one that has been unstable for a long time but really showed itself during the Bush years. I'm sure it freaked George out and I bet he was more than happy his 8 years was up. I don't think any of us know how close we were from being a 3rd world country. We are still on the edge, but honest to goodness it really was looking like we were about to elect (from where I sat) the 2000's back into office. For me I would much rather see us where we are now after election than doing 4 more of the 2000 to 2008 years. Not only would it have taken Mitt 4 years to reverse the tide back again but the hole would have gotten much worse. I would as a businessman much rather see a true beginning even with it having mistakes rather than be forced to get out of business which I'm pretty sure would have happen with Mitt as I still wondered if there was a plan that could move things forward fast enough to save us. I will admit that is based on a feeling, he could have had something up his sleeve that I and my circle of friends didn't see (and believe me we were looking).

So for this being real for me it depends on the guys now sitting down and getting something passed even if it is not what everyone wants the first time around. But for now to be real my business has taken good steps forward with Barack in. I can only imagine at this point (holding my breath) what might happen if they start getting along over there in those pretty buildings we bought for them.

Barack and the rest of you make your move and make it at least one that gets us back to par. This is my story of a "real" small business living through the past 30 some (man I'm getting old) years.

Other small business owners care to share your story of where you were then and now? Earlier I mentioned for those who went through and are still going through it cause unless you are still in business and have been since the mid to late 80's you really didn't live through this particular cycle. No put down to what you experienced but I think people who have been living in this cycle see things first hand step by step and the ones I talk to anyway are glad as heck this election went the way it did. When 2010 election hit we said "here we go again" and some of my friends gave up saying "their never going to work together". I had more hope and it's starting to pay off.

This quite interesting..

I have to ask why you didn't increase your debt levels and keep those employees when things began to slow down?

Leigh..I didn't participate in nasty slurs or vicious attacks against Bush when he was in office...This isn't my style...I'm always in favor of intelligent discussions. But when "bombs" and "spears" start flying back and forth in nasty and childish ways I want out!..I don't want to view politics as a sport because so many "real-life" issues and problems are at stake.