Horseshoe Chamber Blog

American workers are increasingly confident about retirement prospects, the 2014 Retirement Confidence Survey reveals. The Employee Benefits Research Institute released the results of the survey earlier this week on March 18. Experts warn that Americans should not necessarily take heart from the results. Retirees' confidence and positive outlook may, in fact, be unfounded. "This increased level of confidence does not appear to be founded on improved retirement preparations. In the aggregate, worker savings remain low, and only a minority appear to be taking basic steps to prepare for retirement," the report explained. USA Today adds that 36% of Americans saved less than $1,000 for retirement and 60% admitted they had less than $25,000 set aside for retirement, also according to a recent E...

Moore, Oklahoma has been ravaged by EF5 tornadoes that leveled the entire community not once, but twice. Many residents still remember the devastation of a May 3, 1999 tornado, and the city is still trying to recover from one that touched down on May 20 of last year. In an attempt to limit the damage caused by tornadoes, Moore City Council members unanimously approved new, strict residential building codes that will make homes better able to withstand the treacherous weather. The 14 changes approved by the council make it the first city in the United States to take such action, so it is an historic move. The list of changes will include hurricane clips or framing anchors, continuous plywood bracing, wind-resistant garage doors, and fortifications that will allow homes to withstand winds o...

WaterAid Nepal launched two reports on Tuesday that found that the lack of handicap accessible sanitation infrastructure in public places has deprived differently-abled persons of their right to proper sanitation and water. According to the reports, people with disabilities don't enjoy the same right to water and sanitation as other because of the inaccessibility of taps and toilets in private homes, housing colonies, and public places like governmental offices, schools, malls, amongst others. Of the 61 public toilets in the Kathmandu Valley, not a single one is handicap accessible. The reason why the issue is so problematic is because most of the people with disabilities live in rural areas, where the access to proper sanitation is even worse due to remoteness, lack of safe water, and...

Believe it or not, it's possible to have to the flu and never feel it, as a new study finds three quarters of people who have seasonal and pandemic flu don't exhibit any symptoms. Researchers at University College London in the UK, led by Dr. Andrew Hayward, published their study's results in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. According to the study, recent outbreaks of seasonal flu and the H1N1 influenza pandemic infected one in five people from the general population. Yet, only 23% of these infections actually caused symptoms, and only 17% of those people were actually unwell enough to visit their respective physicians. The research team says that their findings show that influenza rates across all winter seasons was around 22 times higher than the Royal College of General Practitioner...

Every year, consumers from around the world spend a staggering $100 million on bottled water. Not only does that hurt wallets -- spending just a couple bucks a day can really add up -- but plastic water bottles contribute to pollution and harm the environment. In the first week of March, San Francisco took a major stride to help solve both those problems. New proposed legislation would ban the sale of plastic water bottles on city property and make the city the first major municipality to take such action. “There are incredible, enormous environmental costs of plastic water bottles," said Supervisor David Chiu, who introduced the idea. "It takes 1,000 years for a typical plastic water bottle to biodegrade." The production and transportation of the bottles also adds to dependence on fossil...

The small business audit rate decreased in 2013, according to new documentation released by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The decline -- "from 0.71% in 2012 to 0.61% in 2013," according to Small Business Trends -- is not necessarily cause for celebration. When compared with small business audit rates over time, the current percentage is alarmingly high -- or 0.61% compared to 0.36% in 2004. The small decrease over the past year, moreover, is unlikely to repeat itself. "Given the tax agency's belief that small business owners are responsible for a sizeable portion of the tax gap –- the difference between taxes owed and taxes paid -– the IRS seems unlikely to cut the small business audit rate considerably this year," Small Business Trends explains. USA Today confirms the IRS is, if...

Facebook is no stranger to marketing small businesses. Since the social media giant launched in 2004, it has made leaps and bounds to become the number one social media platform in the world. Most recent estimates put its users at 1.3 billion people. Recognizing Facebook's potential for getting brands in front of web users, countless businesses have flocked to the site. Subsequently, Facebook is estimated to earn $2 billion per quarter. It isn't just huge, well-known companies taking advantage of the platform's marketing effectiveness. There are now 25 million small business pages on Facebook. If recent events have proven anything, it's that the SMB market is just as important to Facebook as Facebook is to the SMB market. A Meeting of the Minds The Small and Medium Business Council, mad...