Banks and the government…when will they put their money were their mouth is with small business and start ups!?

Winston Churchill is famous for saying ‘I never worry about action, but only about inaction’ Although the governments are keen to keep financial and manufacturing giants in business by bailing them out with massive loans etc why aren’t governments making the funds available to smaller businesses too? It’s no bad thing that the governments will bail out the giants as the impact of such businesses going down would be catastrophic on the economies that depend on them but what about the smaller businesses, for whom the impact of failure, albeit localised, is just as bad for those involved? It appears that high profile = votes = must be saved, whereas low profile = swept under the carpet = deniable, unfortunate, just bad luck. Why aren’t governments making the funds available to smaller businesses too? They keep telling the banks ‘you must, it’s part of your loan agreement that you keep lending to smaller businesses’ – but that is not what happening, and all Gordon Brown does is ‘get angry’. Not too constructive. Maybe it’s time that the smaller businesses made a bigger noise? If they’re going to fail if they do nothing, might as well make a fuss about it – and perhaps making the fuss might generate the publicity to save them? So many people are saying that Small Business will save us in this recession, we will be the ones that start the cogs of the economy turning once more by introducing something exciting and encouraging spend for the good of the individual and in turn, the economy so we should, as Sir Winston says, take action as ‘This is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure’. Sir Winston Churchill What are your thoughts on this matter? Is the lobbying that goes on between the governments, the banks and the corporate giants just too much to overcome? Who will take care of the little guy?

Obama vs SME vs The World!

On Saturday I came across a copy of The Sun as I sat pondering away on the Tube, and opened it to Clarkson’s page – which I always find hilariously funny, a tad crass, but also somewhat poignant…for those of you who didnt get a chance to read it, the long and short is why is the world going crazy over Obama and expecting him to save the world – he is just a man…So I would like to put this to the masses…why is the world going crazy over Obama, and what can he do for our financial crisis, small business enterprise – and will he ’save’ the world’s economy?

Well, Obama is clearly a great man if for no other reason than he’s beaten hundreds of other very good opponents to reach his goal – McCain, Clinton etc etc. That doesn’t make him bigger or better than a great man, but it does make him very special. And he is in a better position than anyone else to ‘save the world’. Though he’s clearly got his work REALLY cut out to ‘save’ it from Gordon’s ‘saving’!

Small businesses need the ‘world to be saved’. One big company going down with, say, 10,000 jobs lost will possibly lose 50,000 jobs in total after the knock-on effect on small suppliers is considered; and many of these jobs could be in the third world. (I don’t know what the multiplier really is, but 5 to 1 can’t be too far off)…

So what we need is a leader, someone to inspire confidence and help us to move on, build our bridges and get across hem, as Charles Kettering once said ‘No one would have ever crossed the ocean if they could have got off the boat during the storm’…with small business being encouraged, we could be the ones to get the markets moving once more – bring something new to the global markets and encourage the flow of currency again…as at the moment, if I hear another person say ‘I will wait and see what the markets are doing’ I will scream – as they are clearly not doing  lot!

But the question I am asking is; Is Obama this person to inspire such confidence in us and each other, to get us moving? Obama himself inspires the entrepreneurship, as Alex Bellinger at SmallBizPod says:

‘A leader who can build confidence, loyalty, inspire people with a vision and reveal his or her common humanity to connect on a personal level, is a strong leader. A leader that in many ways evokes the essence of the entrepreneurial.

Obama, right now, is achieving that.  He is the embodiment of the American dream, as many have said over the past few days, but he’s also the embodiment of the US entrepreneurial spirit.’

So, I say, YES HE CAN! He can inspire our markets and be the defibulator that electricutes them back to life, and he can inspire us entrepreneurs to get back on the horse and believe in orselves and the world’s economies once more!