The Olympics and The Summer Travel Season
I start this week with two underdog stories:
18 year old Tunisian Ahmed Hafnaoui wins gold in the men’s 400M Freestyle from lane 8. That was the fifth gold medal for Tunisia EVER. How did he do it? “I don’t know, I just put my hand in the water, and that’s it.”
30 year old Austrian Anna Kiesenhofer is a math professor and the only entry for the 85 mile Cycling Road Race from Austria. Defying all conventional wisdom, she jumped ahead of the pack with four other cyclists. The four ultimately dropped back leaving her alone up front on the up-hill and down-dale countryside course with as much as a 10 minute lead at some points. She was so far ahead of the pack, that the peloton had forgotten all about her. The heavily favored Dutch team was stunned when they finished one minute and 15 seconds behind her, claiming silver. In true cycling arrogance, they blamed the loss on what happens when radio communications are not allowed. Hmmm. Maybe one of the four should have been in charge of tracking who was in front of them rather than which team member will get the gold. Of course, that would never occur to any team that never has anyone more than a couple of hundred yards in front of them.
So how does this apply to your business?
You don’t have to be the favorite to win; you just have to know your lane and do what you do best.
Sometimes you need to make your own head start and get so far ahead that your competition forgets all about you.
Small business can beat big business any day of the week and twice on Sunday. That’s because small business owners are working on Sunday.
However, beat big business too often, and they will propose industry regulations. This is not to protect the customer, but to stifle the competition. Do you think radios might be allowed in the 2024 Olympics? I guess it depends on if the Dutch have more lobbying euros than the Austrians…
I am curious – who is having a good vacation? Granted that bad news travels fast, those seem to be the stories I am hearing. Just like the car rental companies, the airlines and hotels dumped their employees when covid hit. Pilots were retired and now seem to be enjoying retirement and not coming back. Many hospitality employees have discovered the benefits of the EDD and being paid to stay home. All of a sudden, travelers do want their beds made as well as fresh towels every morning, compared to June of last year when you didn’t even want anyone coming into your room. So, when do things improve? September. That’s when two things happen: unemployment benefits end for many “unemployed” workers and two, schools re-open and parents do not have to stay home to take care of their kids.
PPP and EIDL
There is some discussion – nothing concrete - that forgiveness may be changed so that you can apply directly to the SBA, bypassing the lender. OMG, what could go wrong?
This is clearly a workaround for some of the idiot FinTechs that 10 months later STILL are not offering forgiveness for their borrowers. I am working on a package right now where we are completing the PDF and emailing that to the lender. It is a stark realization that a 10 employee fintech cannot rely on artificial intelligence to process hundreds of thousands of forgiveness applications.
Evidently a number of EIDL decline letters accidentally went out to borrowers requesting increases, so check back with the SBA.
Word on the street is the SBA has worked out many of the issued with the declines due to mismatched information on 4506T forms and things are moving forward faster.
From a recent press release from the FBI…
On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud.
Yeah, if I defrauded the government, I think I’d be little nervous…
Last Olympic thought: Skateboarding has to be the most painful Olympic sport so far. Just a few of the 26 events this week to watch are:
3x3 Basketball – only the US women’s team qualified and they look very good
Surfing – a typhoon is slated to come in to Japan – Surf’s Up!
Canoe Slalom – do NOT try this at home.
GO USA!!!
