On this week's "Open for Business," my guest was David Levinthal of www.opensecrets.org.

This is a non-profit, non-partisan web site that keeps track of money spent by political parties and candidates. David and I rehashed the election results and who was spending what and where. Here are some links to the things we talked about:

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/11/biggest-losers-on-election-night-se.html
- Biggest Election Night Losers: Self-funded Candidates

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/11/three-democratic-powerhouses-lose-b.html
- Cash Couldn't Help Three Democratic Powerhouses in Midterm Election

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/11/unions-bolstering-political-influence.html
- Unions Bolstering Political Influence with Outside Spending

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/11/whos-buying-this-election.html
- Who's Buying This Election? Close to Half the Money Fueling Outside Ads Comes From Undisclosed Donors   I also spent a half hour talking with author and small business consultant, Ernan Roman, "Voice of the Customer Marketing." A Revolutionary Five-Step Process to Create Customers Who Care, Spend and Stay. Ernan was a smoke jumper here in Montana for a time until it was discovered that he had lied about his age. He was 15 and was quickly escorted to safety by authorities. This is his fourth business book. You can find his book on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/Voice-Customer-Marketing-Revolutionary-Customers/dp/007174083X/ and his web site is: www.erdm.com

The rest of the time I talked about how the election affected small business. Those listeners who are concerned about the Federal Reserve were pleased to find out that due to the Republicans now in charge of all the Committees and Subcommittees that have to do with Monetary Policy are now going to be overseen by Republicans and the chairman of one of these subcommittees that will be looking into the Federal Reserve will be chaired by none other than Ron Paul (R-TX). So I guess we'll be finding out who really owns the Fed and perhaps there might be an audit in our future.

You can check out the committees and what they do here:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Committee_on_Financial_Services
- Former Chairman Barnney Frank will be giving up his gavel to the ranking Republican, Spencer Bachus (R-AL).

The United States House Committee on Financial Services (also referred to as the House Banking Committee) oversees the entire financial services industry, including the securities, insurance, banking, and housing industries. The Committee also oversees the work of the Federal Reserve, the United States Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and other financial services regulators.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Financial_Services_Subcommittee_on_Domestic_Monetary_Policy_and_Technology - The subcommittee’s jurisdiction includes domestic monetary policy, and agencies which directly or indirectly affect domestic monetary policy, multilateral development lending institutions such as the World Bank, coins and currency including operations of the Bureau of the Mint and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and international trade and finance including all matters pertaining to the International Monetary Fund and the Export-Import Bank.

  • Mel Watt, North Carolina, was the former chairman and he will be signing this post over to the new Chairman Ron Paul (R-TX).As to the question of who owns the Federal Reserve, a question that often comes up on the show, I would offer this site: http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/who_owns_the_federal_reserve_bank.html
  • I also heard from listeners on their points of view regarding the elimination of state property tax and how that might be accomplished in the upcoming legislature.   Each week I will post a helpful web site of the week. This week's helpful site is http://www.refdesk.com

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