Save the Small Businesses! Obama’s New Plan

The Obama Administration believes that the country’s “economic recovery will be driven in large part by America’s small business.” Our question is how exactly will this be done and just how important are small businesses for our recovery, or rather, for the economy as a whole?

To begin, haven’t you heard that over 50% of small businesses fail within the first 5 years? (A few sources that I have viewed actually states that the percentage is actually around 70-80%!) Why should we help if the majority of them end up failing anyway? However, to think this, we might have neglected to focus on some of the factors as to why some of these small businesses do fail and how it could be prevented. Among some of the top reasons why small businesses fail, which include bad management, over-expansion, lack of planning, location, let’s focus on one point that maybe the economy as a whole can control, which is insufficient capital.

Throughout the years, and especially now during this recession, a problem that deters many entrepreneurs’ dreams is the recurring issue of the inability to have access to sufficient capital to start, operate, or grow businesses. You’ve seen a number of mom-and-pop operations fail due to their intensive competitions with bigger corporations and institutions. Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars have helped bail out these big corporations, such as AIG and the 3 big auto industries, which were all judged as “too big to fail.” Likewise, it is only reasonable that we proceed to help out small businesses who have done no wrong, having to sacrifice for the financial giants that made poor decisions.

So, therefore, the Obama Administration has planned to ease the credit squeeze afflicting small businesses by purchasing up to $ 15 billion of securities backed up by U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) loans. Pumping money into this vital sector of the economy will essentially spur renewed economic growth and unfreeze the markets. The administration’s plan provides encouragement to banks and other lenders to extend the line of credit, and waiving the Small Business Administration’s loan fees. These actions will make more money available to entrepreneurs, many who have great ideas which are typically worth nothing if they cannot pursue their dreams due to rejections for requests of an extension to credit line.

Let’s recapitulate on the importance of small businesses for our economy:

1) They have generated approximately 70% of net new jobs annually over the last decade.
2) They represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms!
3) They account for approximately 40% of high tech jobs (scientists, technicians, engineers, etc.)
4) They have created more than 50% of nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP).
5) They employ more than half of all private sector workers.
6) They represent almost 90% of U.S. exporters.
7) They pay about 45% of total U.S. private payroll.
(Source: Smallbusinessnotes.com)

With this in mind, President Obama has reminded us that small businesses “are the heart of the American economy” and “the heart of the American dream” and the core of “America’s story.”

Global warming is heating up, and the pressure is on businesses of all sizes to be more environmentally friendly.

And unfortunately, business travel is a huge contributor to carbon dioxide pollution. Did you know that a single flight from London to New York creates an average 1.2 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions?

Or that a gas-fueled car traveling 500 miles per week creates an average 9 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year?

All of this adds up to nearly 6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted by the U.S. alone.

So what can your small business do to help save the earth without risking productivity? Or worse, your bottom line.

The answer is simple. Your small business can take advantage of the cost savings, convenience, and environmentally-friendly video web conferencing software to get your business done.

And it’s not as difficult or expensive as you might think.

Here are 6 tips to get you started making your conferences green:

1) Have your employees telecommute a couple days a week if possible. Annually, a worker with a one way commute of 22 miles can save up to 81,000 MJ of energy by telecommuting. That’s about 50% of the annual electricity consumption of an average household!

2) Instead of having meeting attendees each take their own notes, use a web conferencing whiteboard slide where everyone can contribute. Every ton of paper you don’t use saves 38 gallons of oil and 17 trees.

3) When you’re in a face to face meeting, use the hibernate or standby function on your computer to cut energy consumption by up to 80%.

4) Use video conferencing instead of traveling overseas. A trip from New York to London creates 1.2 tons of CO2 emissions.

5) Instead of printing out conference call information, download all of your conference call information into your mobile device.

6) Work from home, if you can. On average, a five-day commuting work week releases 2.5 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, per employee.

So whether you conduct your meetings face-to-face, on the phone, or on the web, there are many ways to make your meetings greener. And your children and grandchildren will some day thank you for using web conferencing to reduce carbon dioxide pollution.