To those of you who don’t understand what the Federal Reserve Bank is doing to, er, for the economy, this HILARIOUS video is for you. It features two little fluffy characters who speak of the ‘Bernanc’ and explain why the Fed is printing $600BN dollars.
Why? ‘The Goldman Sachs’
Transparency, Accuracy, and the Small Business Dashboard
With small businesses creating two out of every three net new jobs, holding more patents than the largest corporations and universities combined, and employing half of all working Americans, we can’t afford to ignore opportunities to improve and advance federal contracting opportunities to small businesses.
Today President Obama’s Interagency Task Force on Federal Contracting Opportunities for Small Businesses put forward thirteen recommendations to:
Transparency, Accuracy, and the Small Business Dashboard
Read the Executive Summary here.
Small business contracting goals, started in 1978, help agencies map out the percentage of annual prime contract spending that should be awarded to small businesses every year. The thirteen recommendations that the Interagency Task Force put forward today will address the gap between the annual government-wide goal for contracting and the actual annual prime contract spending. While the Department of Energy received an “A” grade for FY 2009 achievement from the Small Business Administration, we are fully committed to improving government-wide small business contracting.
The brand-new Small Business Dashboard is a reflection of this commitment. On the Small Business Dashboard visitors can see government-wide goaling information, design their own data feeds from small business data, perform detailed searches on government contractors, view top types of contracts used and states by vendor locations, and learn more about the contracts at each Federal agency.
Visit the Small Business Dashboard here.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization is looking forward to working with the Task Force as we implement the recommendations put forward today and evaluate progress. We hope resources like the Small Business Dashboard prove useful to your small business, and we welcome the opportunity to continue talking with you.
Please forward this to as many people as possible.
Please forward this to as many people as possible.
I did something I doubt few people have dared. I took the liberty of a 13-hour flight back from Asia earlier this week to read all 2,300-plus pages of the bill. Yes, all of them.
My law professor verdict: There are many things to applaud in this bill and much in there that will substantially enhance the government’s power to regulate the financial industry. On the whole, if you think that the financial industry needs more supervision and financial regulators more tools, you should be relatively happy. If you are an advocate of big world changing ideas like breaking up the banks, you will be less so.
Please forward to as many people as you can.
Spoiler Alert: The government does not care about you.
This isn’t a Democrat or Republican problem. This is good old fashion thievery.
On a vote of 57-41, the U.S. Senate defeated legislation that would have keep the increased guarantees and fee waivers in place for another year. While lending to small business has been difficult at best, the return to the old rules will mean even fewer deals get done, since the banks will have more risk.
For working capital (7a) loans less than $150,000, banks will receive an 85% guarantee and will charge a 2% fee on the guaranteed portion. From $150,001 to $700,000 the guarantee is 75% and the fee is 3%. Loans above that amount will be 75% guaranteed with a 3.5% fee.
For SBA Express loans, the cap is$350,000 with a 50% guarantee and a 2% fee.
Most banks will allow rolling these additional fees into the loan.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. may be better off cutting its losses instead of fighting what it terms “unfounded” fraud claims
At the height of the crisis, Treasury guaranteed over $3 trillion in assets to prevent a run on money market mutual funds. The program achieved its purpose, and we terminated it in September. Not only did it not cost the taxpayers anything, it earned them $1.2 billion in fees.
Until now, when making a case for the AIG bailout, the US government has always maintained that had the financial services giant been left to fail, its credit default swap (CDS) obligations would have caused huge losses to its counterparties, resulting in all-out financial collapse.
Dispatches From The Front 