In the recession of the mid-1970s, Frederick Smith needed financing to get a national distribution system for air cargo off the ground. He was able to get $5.8 million through the SBA's Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) program. Today, that company is known as FedEx.
Similarly, in the recession of 1969-70, an SBIC invested about $300,000 in a semiconductor chip manufacturer in California. At the time, it had 218 employees and about $500,000 in revenues. Today, Intel has about 86,000 employees with revenues of nearly $40 billion.
More than half of Fortune 500 companies - a list which includes FedEx and Intel in the top 100 - were born in tough times and many started as small businesses.
Over the past half-century, the SBA has provided critical tools and resources for millions of startups and small businesses like these. If our experience has taught us anything, it's that America's entrepreneurial spirit is strong and resilient, even in tough times.
Through the Recovery Act -- which waived our loan fees and increased our loan guarantee -- we were able to support nearly $30 billion in lending to nearly 70,000 entrepreneurs and small business owners. In fact, nearly one-third of those loans went to new businesses -- less than two years old.
Today, thanks to the Small Business Jobs Act, signed by President Obama on September 27th, we are well on our way to providing $14 billion more in loans to small businesses.
The Jobs Act also provides $12 billion in small business tax cuts so that small business owners can put more of their resources into growing their companies. This includes zero capital gains for those who buy and hold small business stocks for five years, higher deductions for buying new machines and equipment, and an increase in the maximum deduction for startups. Some of the new cuts are effective only for 2010, so now is a good time to check them out.
And the SBA will continue to put more muscle behind successful equity programs like SBIC, which I mentioned earlier. This program has a big impact and almost no cost to taxpayers. Just last year, while growth capital funding was scarce for small businesses, SBA's SBICs reached a 50-year high in the amount of annual financing to small businesses: nearly $1.5 billion.
Through SBA loans, small-business tax cuts, and programs like SBIC, we will continue to play an active role in helping more Americans as they pursue their dreams, jumpstart our economy, and create jobs.
So, if you're wondering whether now is a good time to start a business, think of FedEx and Intel -- and call SBA to see how we can help.
Mastin Kipp: 'The Social Network': 13 Lessons Entrepreneurs Can Take Away
BTW. Gerald4. Pull your head out of your a__. The Repulicans are even better liars.
How could anyone start a business, expand their existing business, and/or hire new employees if they did not know how much those new employees would cost the business?
How can any business know how much is the US government is going to raise the amounts that the government charges businesses for unemployment insurance rates next year? The government has twice extended the number of weeks to pay the unemployed, and the government might extend the number of weeks of benefits again, and the cost increases to businesses for unemployment "insurance premium" increases are absolutely certain, but the amount of the increase is unknown.
The national healthcare cost estimates are probably similar to the initial Medicare cost estimates, and then the healthcare costs will probably be many many times more expensive that the government initial annual cost estimates, and these costs will be passed onto the businesses. The amount of the payroll tax increases to pay for national healthcare are unknown.
Existing environmental laws, and the anticipated costs of future environmental legislation that will be "piled onto" our remaining US located industries (that stay in the USA) will be another factor causing the remainder of our US industries and US jobs to relocate to overseas locations. Foreign environmental manufacturing costs are generally known.
I had one year left on the loan when this happened yet the difference between my figures & theirs is 3K. No one will speak with me, let alone put anything in writing. All I ask is for the banks to honor the terms of the original loan, and for PROOF that they own the loan. Sound familiar?
I'm still hoping for my situation to get resolved properly, but I refuse to pay banks what I don't owe.
One way or another we must stop the exchanging title to everything of value that is privately owned in America as required to raise US dollars to pay for government expenditures, and to pay for the things that we import with US dollars shipped to foreigners.
We must create a positive balance of trade by any means possible. If not, we will destroy the purchasing power of the US dollar.
Without import tariffs, most all products will continue to be available for less US dollars if they are manufactured in foreign countries where labor and environmental costs are minimized than if the same products are manufactured in the USA with higher paid US labor.
The US labor force has no future without high import tariffs to prohibit foreign imported products.
Without high import tariffs, US workers must compete with foreign workers at or below foreign wage scales for employment in the USA. Most USA citizens do not want to work for wages that the same job in a foreign country would pay.
One way or another we must stop the exchanging title to everything of value that is privately owned in America as required to raise US dollars to pay for government expenditures, and to pay for the things that we import with US dollars shipped to foreigners.
We must create a positive balance of trade by any means possible. If not, we will destroy the purchasing power of the US dollar.
Yes, the consumer will pay many times the price for the particular US manufactured product than he would pay for an imported product made with foreign labor and foreign environmental manufacturing costs, but maybe this might avert a second bloody American revolution.
This might be better than the US government borrowing more and more money from the industrial nations in order to pay unemployed people not to work.
I know that this sounds like socialism, communism, and/or fascism, but it might be better than another American Revolution.
Fixing the economy RIGHT NOW might prevent a future second American Revolution.
The SBA is a failure in terms of helping the USA create jobs because it caters to only well-established businesses. SBA incorrectly considers companies with less than 500 employees a 'small business'. Would a company with say 400 employees be looking to hire more during this recession? Of course not.
That is why startups must be given an equal chance, because startups need more hires to grow their business - even during a recession.
But I must emphasize that startups today require government grants and long-term tax incentives, and not complex and burdensome loans from SBA-backed banks.
Investigate these empty promises by the SBA that it is contributing to job creation HuffingtonPost, and do America a great service by way of game-changing investigative journalism.
They first sought out micro-businesses that had succeeded with micro-finance and could demonstrate unfulfilled markets they could fill. Those got loans similar to SBA. But there was something else.
The Brazilian Congress and Executive worked for two years rewriting regulations to give small businesses a break. For example, businesses with less that 50 employees pay no unemployment or workman's compensation tax. Their employees are covered by increases paid by larger companies. Those are just two examples of hundreds of regulations that were changed to lower the stress for small businesses. Of course larger firms complained, right up to the point that an employee from one of those small businesses walked into their store with money in their pocket for the first time.
Sometimes it takes more than just throwing more money at a problem. Sometimes we need to put our faith where our money's at and change the way we do business. We can either believe in the power of small businesses to create jobs, or we can just throw money at small businesses and hope for the best.
I don't need credit leverage. I don't need tax cuts. I need customers, customers, customers. Customers. Full stop.
No job no money to buy!