The Rise Of The Million Dollar, One-Person Business

FORBES  Business

For most people who start a one-person business, riches don’t follow. The U.S. Census Bureau’s recently released annual report on “non-employer” businesses found that there were 22.5 million “nonemployer firms” in 2011. They had average revenues of $44,000. That’s in the ballpark of the average annual wage in the U.S. of $45,790, though, of course, any overhead the owners must pay comes out of their revenue.

But for some of these one-man or one-woman shops, running a microbusiness  is very lucrative. If you’re thinking about going into business for yourself, and worry about how you’ll pay the bills or support your dependents, you may find these statistics about non-employer firms inspiring. Typically, the businesses in this study were sole proprietorships, but a small percentage were partnerships and corporations.

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* 1.6 million owners rang up sales in the the $100,000 to $249,999 range (up from 1.5 million in 2010)

* 484, 479 had sales from $249,000 to $499,000 (up from 453,694 in 2010)

* 209,415 had sales between $500,000 to $999,999 (down from 198,755 in 2010).

* 26,744 had sales between $1 million and $2.49 million (up from 24,945 in 2010)

* 1,723 had sales between $2.5 million and $4.99 million (up from 1,618 in 2010)

*368 had sales of $5 million or more (down from 442 in 2010).

As you’ll see, the numbers of nonemployer firms in most of these categories are rising, and there was a significant bump in those breaking the $1 million mark.

It doesn’t surprise me. I’ve been noticing an increase in million dollar, one-person and home-based businesses in my reporting, on a case by case basis, so I was curious about what kind of work these solopreneurs are doing on a broader scale.

The folks who are really raking it in, in the $5 million or more category, work in 3 categories, according to the new report: Almost all of them (317) run finance and insurance firms. There’s also a small subset (45 people) who work in arts and entertainment. (Talk about a dream career!) And four of them work in retail.

At the next highest revenue tier, from $2.5 million to $4.99 million, the retail category had the greatest number of businesses, with 494 represented. In second place were professional, scientific and technical services, with 328 firms.

In the 1 million to $2.49 million range, the top category, by far, was professional, scientific and technical services, with 6,708 firms. Retailbusinesses came in second, with 2,595 represented.

Obviously, the numbers of such firms are very small, but if these folks can break these revenue milestones, so can others.

If you’re hoping to match a six-figure corporate salary in a one-person business, you’ll probably find the data for these three categories most interesting:

Read more:http://www.forbes.com/sites/elainepofeldt/2013/06/29/the-rise-of-the-million-dollar-one-person-business/

How a total n00b mined $700 in bitcoins

Ars Technica Technology

We take a Butterfly Labs Bitcoin miner, plug it in, and make it (virtually) rain.

by Lee Hutchinson - June 30 2013, 3:30am IST

This is the second in a two-part series exploring Butterfly Labs and its lineup of dedicated Bitcoin-mining hardware. In part one, we looked at the company and the experiences customers have had with it. In part two, we share our experiences running a Bitcoin miner for a couple weeks.There is a whirring, whining presence in my dining room. I notice it every time I walk through. Every day, it sucks down about one full kilowatt-hour of electricity. In a year, it will consume almost $100 worth of juice—and that's on top of the $274 it costs to buy the box in the first place. Oh, and it's hot, too. If I moved it into my office and could stand the noise, I could keep a cup of coffee comfortably warm on top of the thing. Why on earth would anyone want such a disagreeable little machine in their home?

The short answer: every day, that machine magically generates something like $20 in bitcoins.

Read More: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/06/how-a-total-n00b-mined-700-in-bitcoins/

Rafael Nadal knocked out of Wimbledon in 1st round

CBS News June 24, 2013, 2:36 PM 

Rafael Nadal of Spain reacts during his first round Men's Single's match against Steve Darcis of Belgium on the first day of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships, at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club on June 24, 2013 in London. / Mike Hewitt/Getty Images

LONDON In one of Wimbledon's greatest upsets, an ailing Rafael Nadal was knocked out in straight sets Monday by a player ranked 135th — the Spaniard's first loss in the opening round of a Grand Slam event.
Steve Darcis of Belgium stunned the two-time champion 7-6 (4), 7-6 (8), 6-4. He ended Nadal's 22-match winning streak and eliminated one of the Big Four of men's tennis on the very first day of the grass-court Grand Slam.
Nadal was sidelined for seven months with a left knee injury after losing in the second round of Wimbledon last year. He seemed to be struggling physically. He was unable to turn on the speed or use his legs to spring into his groundstrokes, limping and failing to run for some shots.
Darcis was as surprised as everyone else with the result.
"Rafa Nadal didn't play his best tennis today," the 29-year-old Belgian said. "The first match on grass is always difficult. It's his first one. Of course, it's a big win. I tried to come to the net as soon as I could, not play too far from the baseline. I think it worked pretty good today."

Belgium's Steve Darcis returns against Spain's Rafael Nadal during their first round match on Day One of the 2013 Wimbledon Championships tennis tournament in southwest London, June 24, 2013.

/ BEN STANSALL/AFP/Getty Images

Nadal was coming off his eighth championship at the French Open last month but, on this day, he never looked like the player who has won 12 Grand Slam titles and established himself as one of the greatest players of his generation.
It's the second straight early Wimbledon exit for Nadal, who was ousted in the second round last year by 100th-ranked Lukas Rosol.
After that loss, Nadal took the rest of the year off to recover from the knee problem. Since returning to action this year, he had made it to the finals of all nine tournaments he entered, winning seven.
After winning the French Open, Nadal pulled out of a grass-court tuneup in Halle, Germany. He came to Wimbledon without any serious grass-court preparation.
Darcis is the lowest ranked player to beat Nadal at any tournament since Joachim Johansson — ranked No. 690 — defeated the Spaniard in 2006 in Stockholm.
Gustavo Kuerten, in 1997, was the last reigning French Open champion to lose in the first round at Wimbledon.
Darcis, who had won only one previous match at Wimbledon, played the match of his life Monday, going for his shots and moving Nadal from corner to corner. Darcis amassed a total of 53 winners, compared with 32 for Nadal.
Darcis finished the match in style, serving an ace down the middle — his 13th — as Nadal failed to chase after the ball.
Earlier, Roger Federer began his bid for a record eighth title at the All England Club with the same dominance that has defined his grass-court greatness.
Ten years after his first Wimbledon championship, Federer opened the tournament on Centre Court as defending champion and looked right as home as he dismantled Victor Hanescu of Romania 6-3, 6-2, 6-0.
This was a grass-court clinic from Federer that lasted 68 minutes. He had 32 winners, seven aces and just six unforced errors.
He won 90 percent of the points when he put his first serve in. When his serve is clicking, Federer usually is unbeatable. On this day, he won his first 15 service points and 24 out of the first 25.
"I'm happy to get out of there early and quickly," Federer said. "So it was a perfect day."
Earlier, Wimbledon produced an upset in the women's draw with fifth-seeded Sara Errani eliminated by Puerto Rican teenager Monica Puig 6-3, 6-2.
Second-seeded Victoria Azarenka overcame a right knee injury from a scary fall beating Maria Joao Koehler of Portugal 6-1, 6-2.
Read More: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-400_162-57590741/rafael-nadal-knocked-out-of-wimbledon-in-1st-round/

Nelson Mandela remained in critical condition for a second day

The New York Times

Nelson Mandela in Critical Condition for Second Day

By DECLAN WALSH

Published: June 24, 2013

JOHANNESBURG — President Jacob Zuma said on Monday that Nelson Mandela remained in critical condition for a second day in a hospital in Pretoria where he is being treated for a lung infection.

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Leon Neal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“Doctors are doing everything possible to ensure his well-being and comfort,” Mr. Zuma said at a news conference in Johannesburg, but he gave few details about the condition of Mr. Mandela, who was hospitalized on June 8.

Mr. Zuma spoke as South Africans and admirers around the world awaited word on the condition of Mr. Mandela, the iconic leader who played a towering role in his country’s transition from white minority rule under the system of apartheid to multiracial democracy in 1994.

Mr. Zuma said that he and Cyril Ramaphosa, the deputy president of the governing African National Congress, visited Mr. Mandela late Sunday.

“Given the hour, he was already asleep. We were there, looked at him, saw him and then we had a bit of a discussion with the doctors and his wife,” Mr. Zuma said. “I don’t think I’m in a position to give further details. I’m not a doctor.” 

Doctors told Mr. Zuma on Sunday evening that Mr. Mandela’s health “had become critical over the past 24 hours,” according to an earlier statement from the presidency.

In the statement on Sunday, Mr. Zuma said that doctors were doing “everything possible to get his condition to improve and are ensuring that Madiba is well looked after and is comfortable.” Madiba is Mr. Mandela’s clan name.

The language used in the statement was the strongest yet concerning Mr. Mandela’s health.

On Saturday, the president, seeking to play down news reports about Mr. Mandela’s deteriorating health, described his condition as “serious but stable.”

Mr. Mandela, who was freed by the apartheid government in 1990 after 27 years of imprisonment, became South Africa’s first black president after the country’s first all-race elections in 1994. He retired from public life in 2004.

He has not been seen in public since the World Cup soccer final in South Africa in July 2010 and has been hospitalized four times since December, mostly for the pulmonary condition that has plagued him for years.

The South African government faced criticism over the weekend after it confirmed reports that the military ambulance carrying Mr. Mandela to the hospital had broken down, leaving him waiting on the roadside until a replacement vehicle arrived. 

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/world/africa/nelson-mandela.html

Edward Snowden's Escape From Hong Kong

The New York Times  NSA

Hasty Exit Started With Pizza Inside a Hong Kong Hideout

By KEITH BRADSHER

Published: June 24, 2013

HONG KONG — For Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who has acknowledged leaking numerous documents about American surveillance operations around the world, the path to a sudden departure from Hong Kong late Sunday began over a dinner days before of a large pizza, fried chicken and sausages, washed down with Pepsi.

Albert Ho, one of Mr. Snowden’s lawyers, said that before the Tuesday night dinner began, Mr. Snowden insisted that everyone hide their cellphones in the refrigerator of the home where he was staying, to block any eavesdropping. Then began a two-hour conversation during which Mr. Snowden was deeply dismayed to learn that he could spend years in prison without access to a computer during litigation over whether he would be granted asylum here or surrendered to the United States, Mr. Ho said.

Staying cooped up in the cramped Hong Kong home of a local supporter was less bothersome to Mr. Snowden than the prospect of losing his computer.

“He didn’t go out, he spent all his time inside a tiny space, but he said it was O.K. because he had his computer,” Mr. Ho said. “If you were to deprive him of his computer, that would be totally intolerable.”

The outcome of that meeting, Mr. Ho said, was a decision by Mr. Snowden to have Mr. Ho pose two questions to the Hong Kong government: would he be released on bail if he were detained in Hong Kong at the request of the United States, and would the Hong Kong government interfere if Mr. Snowden tried to go to the airport and leave Hong Kong instead.

A person with detailed knowledge of the Hong Kong government’s deliberations said that the government had been delighted to receive the questions. Leung Chun-ying, the chief executive, and his top advisers had been struggling through numerous meetings for days, canceling or postponing most other meetings, while trying to decide what to do in response to an American request for Mr. Snowden’s detention, even as public opinion in Hong Kong seemed to favor protecting the fugitive.

But Mr. Snowden’s choice of Mr. Ho to represent him raised a problem, said the person knowledgeable about the government’s deliberations, who insisted on anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivities in the case. Mr. Ho, a member of the territory’s legislature for nearly 20 years, is a former chairman of the Democratic Party and a longtime campaigner for full democracy here, to the irritation of government leaders of the territory, which was returned by Britain to China in 1997.

“The Hong Kong government doesn’t trust him,” the person said, adding that the Hong Kong government also did not want to be involved in any direct negotiations with Mr. Snowden. So the government found an intermediary, someone with longstanding connections to the local government but not in office, to bypass Mr. Ho and contact Mr. Snowden through someone in the Hong Kong community who was helping Mr. Snowden.

The intermediary told Mr. Snowden Friday night that the government could not predict what Hong Kong’s independent judiciary would do, but that serving jail time while awaiting trial was a possibility. The intermediary also said that the Hong Kong government would welcome Mr. Snowden’s departure, Mr. Ho and the person who insisted on anonymity said. Both declined to identify the intermediary. 

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/world/asia/snowden-departure-from-hong-kong.html?pagewanted=all

Sexual assault has emerged as one of the defining issues for the military this year.

In Debate Over Military Sexual Assault, Men Are Overlooked Victims

Daniel Acker for The New York Times

A scrapbook made by Gregory Helle, who says he was raped by another soldier in Vietnam.

By JAMES DAO

Published: June 23, 2013

Sexual assault has emerged as one of the defining issues for the military this year. Reports of assaults are up, as are questions about whether commanders have taken the problem seriously. Bills to toughen penalties and prosecution have been introduced in Congress

But in a debate that has focused largely on women, this fact is often overlooked: the majority of service members who are sexually assaulted each year are men.

In its latest report on sexual assault, the Pentagon estimated that 26,000 service members experienced unwanted sexual contact in 2012, up from 19,000 in 2010. Of those cases, the Pentagon says, 53 percent involved attacks on men, mostly by other men.

“It’s easy for some people to single out women and say: ‘There’s a small percentage of the force having this problem,’ ” said First Lt. Adam Cohen, who said he was raped by a superior officer. “No one wants to admit this problem affects everyone. Both genders, of all ranks. It’s a cultural problem.”

Though women, who represent about 15 percent of the force, are significantly more likely to be sexually assaulted in the military than men, experts say assaults against men have been vastly underreported. For that reason, the majority of formal complaints of military sexual assault have been filed by women, even though the majority of victims are thought to be men.

“Men don’t acknowledge being victims of sexual assault,” said Dr. Carol O’Brien, the chief of post-traumatic stress disorder programs at the Bay Pines Veterans Affairs Health Care System in Florida, which has a residential treatment program for sexually abused veterans. “Men tend to feel a great deal of shame, embarrassment and fear that others will respond negatively.”

But in recent months, intense efforts on Capitol Hill to curb military sexual assault, and the release of a new documentary about male sexual assault victims in the military, “Justice Denied,” have brought new attention to male victims. Advocates say their plight shows that sexual assault has risen not because there are more women in the ranks but because sexual violence is often tolerated.

“I think telling the story about male victims is the key to changing the culture of the military,” said Anuradha K. Bhagwati, executive director of the Service Women’s Action Network, an advocacy group that has sharply criticized the Pentagon’s handling of sexual assault. “I think it places the onus on the institution when people realize it’s also men who are victims.”

The Department of Defense says it is developing plans to encourage more men to report the crime. “A focus of our prevention efforts over the next several months is specifically geared towards male survivors and will include why male survivors report at much lower rates than female survivors, and determining the unique support and assistance male survivors need,” Cynthia O. Smith, a department spokeswoman, said in a statement.

In interviews, nearly a dozen current and former service members who said they were sexually assaulted in the military described fearing that they would be punished, ignored or ridiculed if they reported the attacks. Most said that before 2011, when the ban on openly gay service members was repealed, they believed they would have been discharged if they admitted having sexual contact — even unwanted contact — with other men.

“Back in 1969, you didn’t dare say a word,” said Gregory Helle, an author who says he was raped in his barracks by another soldier in Vietnam. “They wouldn’t have believed me. Homophobia was big back then.”

Thomas F. Drapac says he was raped on three occasions by higher-ranking enlisted sailors in Norfolk in 1966. He said he had been drinking each time and feared that if he told prosecutors they would assume it was consensual sex. Parts of his story are corroborated in Department of Veterans Affairs records. 

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/us/in-debate-over-military-sexual-assault-men-are-overlooked-victims.html?=_r=6&_r=0