Who truly speaks for small businesses?
Everyone knows that small businesses hate President Obama’s historic healthcare reform law, right? At least that’s what the nation’s leading small-business advocacy group would have you believe.
Joining 26 states, the National Federation of Independent Business challenged the law all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in March. It claimed the “individual mandate” is unconstitutional and would bankrupt small businesses with unnecessary costs.
Yet while the NFIB claims its multimillion-dollar lawsuit is on behalf of job creators and small businesses everywhere, it’s unclear whether small businesses genuinely support the NFIB position. A close look at its record suggests that the NFIB uses the politically valuable mantle of small business to pursue an agenda that may take its cues from elsewhere.
For one thing, many of its 340,000 members, most of whom employ 20 or fewer workers, have already benefited from the law. According to a March report in the Wall Street Journal, members have seen costs go down thanks to tax credits that were built into the law. Small firms in industries like advertising have also been able to compete with large national companies for talented employees. As one member told the WSJ: “[The NFIB is] doing a very big disservice to their members” by opposing the healthcare law.
For another, the NFIB has a record of lobbying for issues that benefit big businesses, not necessarily small ones. Consider a widespread state tax loophole that lets big-box retailers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot transfer income to out-of-state subsidiaries. This loophole often allows the chain retailers to pay no state income tax, while small businesses do. Yet the NFIB has fought against closing such loopholes.
Moreover, small businesses generally favor some kind of regulation, because such standards often make them more competitive with big companies. The NFIB is opposed to regulation on principle, but it also claims, as many Republicans do, that the threat of regulation on entrepreneurs and job creators – they have a habit of calling it “regulatory uncertainty” – has kept businesses from hiring and thus from stimulating the economy. But observers across the political spectrum say this is a canard. Regulation isn’t preventing businesses from hiring. Poor sales are.
Perhaps it is no surprise that the NFIB fights for issues that the Republican Party as well as big corporations also fight for: deregulation, lower taxes and tort reform. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the NFIB’s political action committee has raised over $20 million since 1998. In 2010, nearly 94 percent of contributions went to Republicans. This year it’s 98 percent. It spent $9.5 million lobbying against the healthcare reform bill in 2010. And last year, the NFIB received $3.7 million from Crossroads GPS, according to Bloomberg. Crossroads GPS is a non-profit with close ties to Karl Rove, the political adviser of George W. Bush.
Give the states the power to build jobs
By Muhtar Kent and Ram Charan The opinions expressed are their own.
While the long-term fundamentals of our economy remain strong, America is struggling to recover from the Great Recession. With unemployment rising to 9.1 percent in May, we need more jobs, and we need them now. The good news is that we can create them by encouraging more small businesses and entrepreneurs to compete and win in the global economy.
Here’s the reality today: two out of three new American jobs are created by companies less than five years old. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are powerful — indeed essential — engines of economic growth and job creation, not to mention tax revenues.
Unfortunately, not enough SMEs are geared toward competing internationally, despite the vast potential that exists in many global markets.
One of the great, largely untold economic stories of our time is the mutual dependency between America’s multinational corporations and small and medium-sized enterprises. Today, large U.S.-based global businesses directly employ 22 million Americans and support more than 41 million additional American jobs through their supply chains. That’s nearly one in three American workers.
Ironically, too much of our national discussion about job creation and tax policy separates small businesses from big, public multinationals. Most state governments, which are on the front lines of attracting and retaining key businesses, are better equipped to recognize this mutual dependency and create policies conducive to growth across the board.
Governors can provide invaluable leadership in this regard, given the levers they have to attract investment and connect local companies to overseas markets. And this is about more than states competing for business relocations and expansions. Such initiatives are fine, as far as they go. Instead, we urge each state to make the most of its unique competitive advantages.
All business’ require credit to grow. Our current system of private banks is performing it’s function anemically. One reason is that derivatives are still in vogue. As long as banks can make money placing these bets as to which endeavors fail or succeed, there will be no impetus to help companies expand our economy. Remember, all the remaining investment banks have received commercial bank charters. The banks have also paid record bonus’.
Our real problem this nation must face is moral conduct. Police can lie in an investigation but a citizen suspect will be prosecuted for perjury should his or her memory improve with time. Hence the attitude “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it”. Many citizens now believe torture to be a proper technique for military interrogation. One would have to be naive or foolish to believe individuals in financial power would conduct themselves differently. Neither church nor law has been able to right the U.S. ship of conduct. Perhaps a reading of Adam Smith’s prior work the “Lectures” rather than the “Wealth of Nations” is in order.
from Entrepreneurial:
Why America’s small businesses are becoming like banks
By Terra Terwilliger The opinions expressed are the author's own.
Over two years after the start of the Great Credit Crisis, banks are still not lending money. But big businesses know exactly where to go for a quick, interest-free loan … the little guy. Even as corporate profits recover, big companies continue to squeeze their small vendors, stretching out payment terms and writing late checks. Unfortunately, this blatant exploitation is damaging the small business economic engine that drives half of US GDP.
A friend who owns a small consulting company recently received notice from a Fortune 500 client that henceforth their payment terms would be extended from 90 to 120 days. No discussion, no recourse, just a fancy legalese version of “we’re going to start paying you later because it’s better for us, so get used to it.”
That’s as if your employer casually one day sent you a letter saying that they were going to start paying you 30 days late. Unfortunately, you wouldn’t be able to tell your landlord, the gas company and the supermarket the same thing. Your bills still have to be paid on time.
My friend is not alone. Last August, The Wall Street Journal published an article titled “Big Firms are Quick to Collect, Slow to Pay,” which revealed how companies with more than $5b in annual sales were systematically slowing payments to suppliers, while speeding up their own collections. The analysis showed that companies with revenues over $5 billion took an average of 55.8 days to pay suppliers, compared to 53.2 days a year earlier … and compared to the 40.1 days in which businesses with revenues under $500 million pay up.
The situation is not getting better. “We just updated our payables analysis for 2010,” says a spokesperson for REL Consultancy, the company that did the original WSJ research. “We see the same trends in 2010. Large companies continue to pay slowly, and they are still using their muscle to make their suppliers accept longer payment terms.”
Big companies not only force vendors to accept painful terms, they also don’t reliably pay up. According to the Experian Business Benchmark Report of July 2010, the average days beyond terms (days a company is late on paying according to its own billing standards) for companies with over 1,000 employees increased by 5.6% over the past six months, with 17% of all monies owed delinquent. Some of these delays are doubtless due to billing errors or legitimate disputes about payment. Some are bids to wring a few more days of cash flow out of already stretched vendors.
Massachusetts vote a referendum on health care reform
Trudy Lieberman, a long-time health care and consumer journalist, is a contributing editor to the Columbia Journalism Review and has blogged about health care for cjr.org since the beginning of the presidential campaign. The views expressed are her own.
A few year’s back, a joke on the cocktail circuit went like this: you know the world is topsy-turvy when the best rapper is white; the best golfer is black, and the Germans don’t want to go to war. Tuesday’s vote in Massachusetts that sent Republican Scott Brown to the Senate taking over the seat held by Edward Kennedy for nearly fifty years produced a new twist to the old joke.
Things are indeed upside down when the advocates for a single-payer, national health insurance system supported a Republican. On Sunday, one of those advocates, Diane Cooper Bridges, sent a letter to the president and to his adviser David Axelrod saying:
“Democrats are voting for Scott Brown b/c MA residents know for sure how regressive and oppressive life is under the failed MA plan, especially in this recession that is not getting any better unless you are a banker or a broker on Wall Street or a member of the U.S. Congress. And we know that the national bills are worse than the MA plan.”
For months a small band of single-payer supporters have tried to get the attention of their elected officials, telling them that their state’s much hailed health reform law, which became the model for the national bill Congress is crafting, was not working according to the official version that sometimes appeared in the nation’s news media. For the most part, those people were dismissed.
Specifically, they wanted them to know that the premiums for insurance that residents are required to buy are too high and unaffordable for many. Small businesses are hit particularly hard and are facing increases of 20 to 45 percent. To make policies affordable, families are turning to high deductible plans which make them pay the first $2000 (or more) of their medical costs before the insurance policy does. One person who recently dropped her policy after a 30 percent increase said what was the point of paying for a policy she could not use because of its high deductible.
Policyholders are gaming the system, buying insurance and using it for a few months to pay for care and then dropping it when they are well. That raises the price of coverage for everyone, but it is an inevitable result of the kind of reform the state passed.
None of the respondents who claim to have experience of the health care system in Europe mention which part of Europe they know something about. “Europe” consists of more than a dozen countries, each with its own health care system. In some places, the health care is excellent, in some it is merely adequate. In all places, it is either completely free or genuinely affordable and, most importantly, available to all. And there is always the option of ‘private health care’ – i.e. doctors and hospitals outside the national system that you simply pay for yourself if you can afford it and do not wish to rely on the health care that is provided free. Likewise, there are private health insurance companies similar to those in the USA if you prefer not to rely on the universal national health insurance schemes that pay for the ‘free’ care.
Obama fails small businesses
– George A. Cloutier, a graduate of Harvard Business School, is the founder and CEO of American Management Services, one of the nation’s largest turnaround and management services firms specializing in small and mid-size companies. The opinions of George Cloutier are his own and do not represent those of the United States Conference of Mayors or Partner America. –
President Obama gets an “F” for his small business program. The SBA has guaranteed a paltry 50,000 loans to the nation’s 29 million small businesses – that’s .0017. Loan volume is down 36 percent from 2008 and 50 percent from 2007. Obama and his advisers have actually done the unimaginable; they have reduced the flow of aid to small businesses in the face of a deep recession. The program’s bank lenders have left $15 billion on the table due to “regulatory problems.” Even an administration plan to provide lending to 70,000 vehicle dealers has no takers and failed.
Administration “experts” allocated less than 1 percent of the stimulus bill to small business. It’s mind-boggling that Washington ignores the biggest economic sector in the country employing 60 million people, producing 50 percent of GDP, and creating 70 percent of new jobs.
In the past several weeks, I have had the honor to lead events for small businesses in 15 cities (including Philadelphia, Kansas City, Missouri and Baton Rouge, Louisiana) directly engaging with 2500 small business owners (employers only). Ninety-five percent of these business owners feel the administration’s stimulus plan and program has badly mistreated small businesses compared to Wall Street and Detroit.
On October 21st, President Obama announced a second stimulus for small business. His new plan must have been a political speech since it lacked specifics as to how many businesses would be helped, how much money would be allocated and distributed, and when the money would actually start flowing.
Recently, the House passed a bill that purports to offer $40 billion to small businesses. The banks, having left billions of dollars on the table, astoundingly were selected again as the prime source of lending.
The bill mentions authorizing the SBA as a lender of “last resort” if certain loans are not funded by the banks, with a complicated process yet to be determined. No amount of authorization is mentioned and the process to achieve “last resort” status has no definition or timeframe. Much of the lending purported in the $40 billion will be achieved by raising the limit on certain types of loans; this way more money can be loaned to fewer businesses providing political cover for Congress and the president.
I am an African-American and operate a Small Business that provides services to the Federal Government.
During the Bush administration we were shut out of most procurement bidding opportunities, as was all small, minority and veteran-owned companies. Large companies routinely lied about their size in order to siphon work away from small businesses, and federal regulations were routinely ignored by contracting officers and continue to be ignored.
The federal agency’s Inspector Generals turned a blind eye to this practice. I naturally assumed after a strong election victory, that fixing this would be one of administrations priorities, being that positive changes here would reverberate throughout the economy.
You can only imagine my disappointment in this administration’s ‘real’ attitude when it comes to including small, veteran-owned and minority businesses in any recovery act or day-to-day federal contracting opportunties.
Quality early education: Good for kids and the economy
– Joan Wasser Gish is a consultant in the Boston area. A former senior policy adviser to Senator John Kerry, she recently testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship. The views expressed are her own. –
When the toys are put away and the last youngster is picked up for the day, early childhood education providers like all other entrepreneurs sit down to assess their revenues, account for expenses and make difficult business decisions. And though their services are rife with hugs and games and songs, their work has serious implications for the economy. The child-care sector is a critical driver of economic growth and workforce development. That is why financial leaders and policymakers should do more to support providers as both educators and small-business entrepreneurs.
There are more than 400,000 licensed child-care facilities across the country. They span the economic sectors, with the majority run as sole proprietorship home-based businesses, and the rest split between for-profit and non-profit centers offering early education and care. Most are run by women, and a significant proportion are owned and operated by members of minority groups. Because of the early education and care services they provide, they contribute to both short- and long-term economic growth.
Quality early childhood education is associated with improved worker availability and productivity. Early childhood education enables parents to participate in the labor force. Studies have shown that availability of good early childhood education can reduce employee turnover by 37 to 60 percent.
Conversely, breakdowns in child-care availability are associated with absenteeism, tardiness, and reduced concentration at work. One study estimates that unstable care arrangements leading to absences cost American businesses $3 billion annually.
Early childhood education establishments also contribute to the economy as employers and catalysts of community development. The Oakland-based Insight Center for Community Economic Development estimates that the child-care industry generates more than $50.6 billion in annual gross receipts and 1.85 million full-time equivalent jobs nationwide. When centers locate in low-income urban and rural communities, which many non-profits and some for-profits do, they hire from the local community, enable low- and moderate-income families to participate in the labor force, and purchase and renovate facilities.
But the greatest economic impact of high-quality early childhood education is its beneficial effect on enrolled children. Nobel Laureate economist James Heckman argues that high-quality early education provides “the advantage of an early start to their skill development improving their chances of successfully participating in the job market in later years.”
Early childhood control of the child by the state will lead to state contol of the child’s future as well as of the child’s parents. State sponored humanism will more easily florish and the de-establishment religous values.
Women small business owners really need healthcare reform
– Nancy Duff Campbell is a founder and co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, one of the nation’s pre-eminent women’s rights organizations. A recognized expert on women’s law and public policy issues, for over thirty-five years Ms. Campbell has participated in the development and implementation of key legislative initiatives and litigation protecting women’s rights, with a particular emphasis on issues affecting low income women and their families. The views expressed are her own. —
Insurance companies and others who profit from our broken health care system are mobilizing to defeat comprehensive reform by using misinformation and scare tactics. A prime example is the allegation that healthcare legislation – specifically the plan being considered by the House of Representatives – will hurt small businesses.
The fact is that small business owners, especially women, are already hurting under our current healthcare system. Leah Daniels, 29, is the owner of Hill’s Kitchen – a gourmet kitchenware store that opened last May not far from the U.S. Capitol. Daniels can’t afford to offer health insurance to her three employees. She purchased her own bare-bones plan on the individual market for protection “in case I get hit by a car,” but not much else. It costs her just under $200 a month and doesn’t cover such services as routine doctor’s visits or maternity care. Daniels, who often works 7 days a week, says that she is constantly worried about getting sick.
Daniels’ problems are, unfortunately, all too typical. A new report by the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) found that small businesses pay up to 18 percent more than large firms for the same health insurance policy. These higher costs mean that small businesses are considerably less likely than larger businesses to provide health insurance to their employees, and those that do tend to have less comprehensive plans. And Census data show that women-owned businesses are generally smaller than male-owned businesses.
Small business owners and employees who don’t get coverage at work or through a spouse’s plan may shop for insurance individually. But if they are women – and small businesses that don’t offer health coverage tend to have large proportions of female workers – they are likely to face discrimination in the individual health insurance market. A study by the National Women’s Law Center found that insurance companies routinely charge women higher rates than men for individual policies and offer policies that exclude health needs specific to women, such as maternity care.
Women who own a small business know that the current health care system is failing them. At a meeting of women small business owners in May, Daniels says, “We went around the room and everyone either had health insurance through their spouse or didn’t have coverage at all. Women talked about being afraid to go to the doctor because they didn’t want to find out that they might be sick. It was really striking.”
The healthcare reform plans that have begun moving through Congress would help make it possible for small business owners to offer comprehensive, affordable health insurance. The House plan would make insurance more affordable by prohibiting insurance companies from discriminating on the basis of health status or gender and by allowing small businesses to purchase coverage through a new Health Insurance Exchange. The Exchange would reduce administrative costs and offer a choice of plans meeting minimum benefit standards. New tax credits would be available to help some small businesses pay for employee health coverage; the credit would be worth 50 percent of the cost of qualified health coverage expenses for businesses with 10 or fewer employees and average wages of $20,000 or less. It would gradually be reduced until firms reached 25 or more employees or average wages of $40,000 or more.
Obviously the law has been enacted by now. We’ll see if it changes in the courts or through Congress. We’ve found http://www.ceowomensclub.com/articles/Fe male-Entrepreneurs-Reality that this is an important issue for women business owners. The cost and potential fear of getting sick can impact the most successful woman business owner
Small businesses need bold, flexible relief package
- Lesia Bates Moss is president of Seedco Financial, a subsidiary of Seedco, a national nonprofit organization that helps low-income people and communities move toward economic prosperity. Any opinions are her own. -
As policymakers in Washington work to unfreeze the credit market and reinvigorate lending activity, much of the attention has fallen on the biggest lenders and the needs of major companies.
But on Main Streets across the nation, small businesses have also been hit hard by the recession and credit crunch. Unable to obtain affordable capital – and often in need of technical assistance to help them survive the financial tumult – many small businesses are closing their doors and laying off workers.
President Obama has proposed some important steps to address the small business credit crisis. His plan creates incentives for banks to lend to small businesses by expanding loan guarantees and purchasing up to $15 billion of Small Business Administration-backed loans through the Troubled Assets Relief Program.
But a small business rescue package should include a large infusion of capital that puts money directly into the hands of small businesses. In addition, resources should support the activities of community development financial institutions (CDFIs) and other alternative lenders who provide a range of financial and technical assistance services to small employers left reeling by the downturn.
“Crisis on Main Street,” a new report by Seedco Financial, the New York-based, nonprofit CDFI, summarizes the small business credit problem. The report notes that 75 percent of domestic banks have imposed tighter restrictions for loans to small businesses; and the SBA backed 68 percent fewer loans last October than it did in October 2007. Overall, only 28 percent of small businesses are using bank loans, the lowest rate since 1993.
Even in the best of times, the capital market available to small businesses is insufficient. Banks depend on rigid formulas to assess the risk of potential borrowers, considering measures such as number of employees, financial performance records, and credit histories. Most small businesses, and especially the smallest ones, are deemed too risky under these criteria.
I feel this to be true!
A small-business relief package must also include funding that allows alternative lenders to actually deliver capital to more small businesses. New funding is needed to cover administrative and loan-servicing costs, which will allow high-quality lenders to offer more affordable financing to small businesses.
Finally, we have to do more to provide small businesses with comprehensive business services customized to their individual needs, including help with financial planning, debt management, and loan restructuring services for businesses with loans with unfavorable terms.
Utilizing capital effectively takes skill and savvy and technical assistance should be offered in tandem with loan services as an integral part of a small-business recovery plan. These services could be provided by a range of organizations, including CDFIs and credit unions. The president’s small business package includes modest funding for such technical assistance; much more is needed.
Small businesses across the country need a response that is equal to the current crisis. In New York after 9/11 and in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, government support helped to expand the alternative lending market’s capacity to serve small businesses in need. Seedco Financial and other CDFIs played a major role in assisting small businesses in the aftermath of both of these regional crises, helping thousands of small firms and saving thousands of jobs.
I am a single mom, taking care of my 2 grandson, since my daughter has passed away in 2005. I have been on disability for 5 years now and I am in need of a better income. I have a business plan for a Bed & Breakfast, Coffee/Deli. I have 2 adult sons that will be helping me with this family business and I would like to have it completed for the 2010 Winter Olympics. I need help with start-up (Seed Money)10% = $100,000. I live in Blaine Wa. and working with SBA for financing, I want to build ‘Green’. The Value of my home/business will be a bonus. This will be great for our eco, I have a number of contractors that want the job. I plan to have an income of $100,000. to $200,000. or more, in the first 3 – 5 years. If I can make the Olympics, the first month of opperation I will make my yearly mortage payment. I have the go ahead with the city, everything is on hold because of the need for funds, if you would like to invest or know of an Angel Investor, I would appreciate the help. thank you for any info.
First 100 Days: Do not marginalize small businesses
– George A. Cloutier, a graduate of Harvard Business School, is the founder and CEO of American Management Services, one of the nation’s largest turnaround and management services firms specializing in small and mid-size companies. He is also the author of the upcoming book, “Profits aren’t Everything, They’re the Only Thing.” The views expressed are his own. –
Why are the Obama Administration, Congress, and the Senate marginalizing the nation’s largest industry in the new stimulus plan?
Small Business Inc. employs about 60 million people, accounts for 70 percent of new jobs each year, and clearly represents the backbone of almost every regional and local economy. For this vital industry, the administration has allocated less than 1 percent ($700 million earmarked vs. $1 trillion in proposals). The nation’s leaders continue the small business program of the Bush years: talk a lot and do practically nothing.
The sponsors of the bill, most likely to succeed, say that small business will benefit indirectly from the spending programs. This is the same discredited thinking of Reagan’s “trickle-down” economics.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Lawrence Summers, director of the Economic Policy Council, have absolutely no experience with small business.
They have no idea what it’s like to not meet a payroll, have no money because collections are slow, and to be able to only pay a fraction of their bills to stay in business.
Approximately 12,000 small businesses will close their doors every week this year. The Obama administration says it cares about the little guy, but what they should say is that they care about the little guy except for those who own small businesses.
I have owned a family restaurant for 28 years. I work here 7 days a week. I have always turned a very decent profit for my efforts until the past 18 months. I have, over the years, grown and gradually employed more people(many family). This has been the worst year ever for business with our costs soaring, energy bills high, (Pennsylvania)and profits and volume at an all time low.
I am located in a very small town where more and more people are losing their jobs everyday and I know there is nowhere for me to turn. The money I have saved for my eventual retirement is now being eaten up just to keep my doors open and my loyal employees from losing their houses. Through no fault of my own this is happening, and there is NOTHING I can do but try to decide whether to keep holding on or get out. Only problem is, I’ve just lost a huge portion of what my business was worth a year ago, and there is no one able to get financing in this market even if they were willing to take the risk now and buy a stagnant business where you are guaranteed to work 7 days a week for your trouble.
Where is the help for us? And I do not mean loans. No one in their right mind wants to make payroll or pay bills on credit. We need immedialte tax breaks and substantial enough to actually “stimulate.”
If not, my last 3 decades of hard work will be worthless and my employees will be even worse off.
I would sell the company jet if I had one but I don’t so I guess my car is next. How bad does this have to get before anyone looks our way? Busineses like mine are the backbone of America. I worked hard and acheived the American dream only to now watch it slip through my fingers because of the greed factor of big business.
Yet we get no help. We get socialism to boot. Help, please.
A small business owner’s wish list for the new president
Pamela Redmond Satran is a developer of baby-naming site nameberry.com, based on the name guides she coauthored with Linda Rosenkrantz. The opinions expressed are her own.
Dear President-Elect Obama,
In the final days leading up to your election, we heard a lot about what you were going to do to help small-business owners. Now it’s time to pony up. Not sure where to start? As someone with the audaciously bad timing to launch my website, nameberry.com, on October 14, I have some ideas:
Start a web-based work initiative Taking a cue from FDR’s bold work initiatives in his first 100 days, you might train people to work on small web businesses like mine. Instead of the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), call it the WWW Camp, where laid-off mortgage brokers and moms craving flexible hours can learn software coding and database management and website design. The result: More jobs in northern Vermont and southern Virginia; more accessible and affordable help for the new generation of small web-based business owners like me.
And while you’re at it, improve the Internet infrastructure You’re planning to spend billions on highway improvements, but what about the Internet infrastructure? Spending money on roads promotes more driving, which uses fuel and increases our carbon footprint, while investing in the next generation of technology encourages people to stay home and spend more time on the web. That’s good for me and all the other web startups.
Bring the Small Business Association into the 21st century I’d love it if the SBA was dealing with 2009 businesses like mine along with coffee shops and dry cleaning stores. The kinds of issues I faced starting my business – finding a talented and affordable designer, figuring out search engine optimization, driving traffic to my site – aren’t even addressed at sba.gov.
Help the midcareer worker retool My degree in journalism helped me launch a career as a magazine editor and writer and book author, but I wasn’t sure where to turn for my new educational needs in this economy. Who was going to teach me how to embed video on my blog – and then how to get out there and promote the thing? Where was someone accustomed to working alone going to learn how to motivate and manage a team – especially without money in the picture? I figured it out myself, but education and training efforts aimed at the midcareer worker looking to launch or renovate a small business, or stay vital in a larger corporation, would be wonderful.
I support what the President-elect Barack Obama has been advocating in his campaign to revive, strengthen and
boost small businesses in the USA which is the only solid solution to this great economic mess. Most of the bail-out money should be channeled directly to small business (how to do this is another challenge). The Fed has no choice but to find the fastest ways to distribute equitably this huge amount of cash that it has printed to save some vital businesses on time. Small businesses could have the capability of re-channeling this new money into new payroll to take care of unemployment concerns. Small businesses are producers and not consumers in the sense that they add value to products and services that they process. The concept of “Added Value” will produce more employment, economies of scale, and competitive prices which is badly needed now. Small businesses are the alternative investments that savers would not be afraid to get into because they have complete control of the company in contrast to investing in the stock market where you don’t know how many geedy and immoral hands are dipping into your investment.
For more discussion, anyone may contact me at my email.
CaptnCrunch, as a card carrying left wing “liberal” Democrat who believes your guns would make an excellent artificial reef, you are what I miss the most about the real Republican party – a thinking mind with a sensible opinion.
I’m sure that after a passionate exchange of ideas while having a couple of beers, you would leave understanding my views and I would leave understanding yours.
Please take back your Party… please!