It’s traditional to rate a new administration at the conclusion of its first 100 days in office.

But the Obama administration might want to take a closer look at how they are faring with small business owners.

A new survey highlighted in an April 13 edition of Bizjournals found widespread displeasure with the president among small business owners.

Nearly 60 percent thought the president didn’t understand the needs of small firms and more than 40 percent were less optimistic about the national economy than before President Barack Obama took office, the survey said.

The Internet survey was conducted in March by City Business Journals Network and involved interviewing 301 CEOs and presidents of companies with five to 499 employees. Follow up phone interviews showed clear anger over the federal bailouts.

Pat Moore, owner of a private-duty health care firm in Kansas, worried about the specter of inflation, while others believed the large bailouts set a terrible precedent.

Several small business owners said even huge companies should be allowed to fail.

“If you didn’t run your business properly and you can’t survive, go away and let the strong survive, because that’s the way it’s always been, and that’s the way it should be,” Ronnie Nudelman, owner of a Buffalo printing company, told City Business Journals Network.

Not every review was negative.

One small business owner gave Obama credit for reaching out to small businesses to try to understand their needs, the report said.

Naturally, other concerns included loosening the credit market and that perennial small business woe — the high cost of health insurance.

The survey found that two-thirds of respondents were concerned that health care reform would mean higher costs for them.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————– This article was submitted by Kathleen O’Connor, a contributing writer for Biz2Credit. Biz2Credit is a small business marketplace that provides entrepreneurs with the latest industry news and financial advice. Send all questions to info@biz2credit.com.

It’s become a familiar story as business tries to find it’s footing in a struggling economy a bit of good news wrapped in a lot of bad news.

European production fell nearly 19 percent, but at least it was less than the month-to-month drop predicted by economists, according to this April 16 report in SME Times of India,

European industrial production plunged by an annual 18.4 percent in February, according to data released earlier in the month, the SME Times said, a sign the global recession was worsening.

The silver lining was that the European Union’s (EU) statistics office, Eurostat, said the month-on-month February fall was less than the 2.7 percent drop predicted.

Other statistics released include notes on inflation, which came in under expectations in March as food and fuel costs eased.

SME Times said the ongoing weakness and inflation issues would to help strengthen the case for the European Central Bank to deliver another rate cut next month.

In other news, industrial production within the European Union dropped 17.5 percent.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————– This article was submitted by Kathleen O’Connor, a contributing writer for Biz2Credit. Biz2Credit is a small business marketplace that provides entrepreneurs with the latest industry news and financial advice. Send all questions to info@biz2credit.com.

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On today’s college campuses, environmental awareness goes way beyond recycling drives or Earth Day rallies.

At places like Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio, students are making their own Earth-friendly biodiesel fuel by converting used cooking oil from the dining hall, said a Jan. 22 article by The Associated Press .

“It ends up as a product that is more friendly to the environment. And we’re teaching with it,” Woody Woodruff, director of facilities at Sinclair, told the AP.

The college is one of many making biodiesel, an alternative fuel produced from renewable oilseed crops, such as canola or soybean, or from used vegetable oil and other fats, the AP said.

Others include the State University of New York, which uses biodiesel for about 8 percent of the fuel used on campus, and Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., which produces 50 to 150 gallons of biodiesel each week to power campus lawn mowers, a garbage truck and farm equipment, the AP said. In Kansas, the University of Kansas uses biodiesel for lawn mowers, backhoes, front-end loaders and other construction equipment.

The AP interviewed Neil Steiner, a 22-year-old architectural engineering student from Oklahoma. “I’m really into green buildings, and it was the greenest thing I could get my hands on,” he said.

Most colleges make biodiesel by chemically converting used cooking oil from campus dining halls, the report said.

Estimated U.S. sales of biodiesel have jumped from 75 million gallons in 2005 to 700 million gallons last year, according to the AP. The cost of making biodiesel $1 a gallon, the report said.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————– This article was submitted by Kathleen O’Connor, a contributing writer for Biz2Credit. Biz2Credit is a small business marketplace that provides entrepreneurs with the latest industry news and financial advice. Send all questions to info@biz2credit.com.

The Obama administration announced recently it will expand its $50 billion housing aid plan to help more homeowners avoid foreclosure.
The changes, aimed at homeowners who do not qualify for other aid, will make it easier for them to sell their homes for less than the cost of the mortgage or transfer ownership to the lender.

The president’s Making Homes Affordable program, launched in March, reimburses mortgage companies that modify borrowers’ loans to help homeowners make the payments and keep their homes. To qualify for a modified loan, borrowers must provide proof of income and a letter stating why they need help.

Companies have made more than 55,000 offers to modify borrowers’ loans, according to the Associated Press.

Some mortgage brokers complain the loan modification plan is too complicated.

“Our experience at the ground level has been, so far, frustrating,” Michael van Zalingen, director of homeownership at Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, a counseling group, told the AP. Some mortgage company employees are either steering borrowers away from the plan or are unaware of it, he said.

Not all homeowners will qualify for loan modification. But Faith Schwartz, executive director of Hope Now, a mortgage industry group formed in response to the foreclosure crisis, told the AP, “This is a very well-thought out plan. People have to be a little bit patient.”

The recent revisions are meant to help borrowers who owe significantly more on their mortgages than they can afford to pay and so don’t qualify for the loan revision program.

In the first quarter of 2009, foreclosure filings topped 800,000, according to RealtyTrac, an online marketer of foreclosed properties.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————– This article was submitted by Katie Kapler, Director of Online Strategy for Biz2Credit. Biz2Credit is a small business marketplace that connects entrepreneurs with financing options and advice to grow their business. Send all questions to katie.kapler@biz2credit.com.

New data shows the recession is far from over, especially for the nation’s banks.

In the first quarter of 2009, six out of every 10 banks in the U.S. were less well prepared to withstand possible loan losses than they had been at the end of 2008, according to a new analysis by msnbc.com and the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University in Washington.

Overall, bad real estate loans rose another 22 percent in the quarter, according to the report.

The country’s 10 largest banks made $10.2 billion — the vast majority of reported bank earnings this quarter. The more than 8,000 remaining banks lost $2.6 billion, according to the analysis.

You can get information about more than 8,000 of the country’s banks at Banktracker.investigativereportingworkshop.org.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————– This article was submitted by Katie Kapler, Director of Online Strategy for Biz2Credit. Biz2Credit is a small business marketplace that connects entrepreneurs with financing options and advice to grow their business. Send all questions to katie.kapler@biz2credit.com.

Enough about boom and bust in the housing market are some areas are seeing boom, bust, boom?
Buyers are taking a second look at areas decimated by the real estate downturn, according to an April 7 article in BusinessWeek.

First-time home-owners are suddenly entering bidding wars with real estate speculators from as far away as Spain and Germany, BusinessWeek wrote.

“I look for markets that are downtrodden,” Rich Lehrer, a North Carolina investor, told the magazine. “I’m expecting to get better yields than I would get on my cash.”

Sales on the Gulf Coast of Florida, California’s Inland Empire near Los Angeles, and the Las Vegas metropolitan area surged by more than 80 percent in February against the same month last year, the report said.

One person interviewed, a 31-year-old Las Vegas resident, scored a $140,000, 3-bedroom home that previously sold for $350,000, the report said.

So onto the million-dollar question: “Are we at the bottom?” Christopher Thornberg, an economist with Beacon Economics, asked BusinessWeek. “We are getting close.”

Most experts believe that in some areas the pendulum has swung so far in the opposite direction of the bubble that sellers can’t help but get back in the market. That said, it might just signal a floor to falling real estate prices, not a swing back north.

BusinessWeek said inventories — always deeply connected to price — are “falling fastest in markets where speculators and first-time buyers are driving the action. Those parties don’t have to put their own homes on the market to make a deal. It remains vexingly difficult for home-owners who have bought in the past five or so years to sell one property and buy another. On top of that, government incentives of up to $8,000 in tax credits for first-time buyers and low mortgage rates engineered by the Federal Reserve are luring shoppers who otherwise would be sitting out. If the government were to take away the punch bowl, markets that seem to be bottoming could well turn down again.”
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————– This article was submitted by Kathleen O’Connor, a contributing writer for Biz2Credit. Biz2Credit is a small business marketplace that provides entrepreneurs with the latest industry news and financial advice. Send all questions to info@biz2credit.com.

Some small businesses are planning for an economic upswing, and they are rethinking business models, launching new marketing campaigns, considering real estate deals, and some even hiring new staff, said the Associated Press.

These business owners say they are moving past short-term thinking about the economy. Donn Flipse, owner of Field of Flowers, floral superstores in Florida, told the AP, “Business is going to get better, so I’m going to do something to position myself to do even better than my competition.”

The real estate market around the country has been especially hard hit by the recession, putting many small companies out of business. But some survivors are looking toward an upswing in the housing market.

Kathy Braddock, co-founder of Charles Rutenberg Realty in New York City, said she’s readying for the next boom in a city where real estate is king. She told the AP the company is improving technology so it can take on more agents – preparing to go from 250 to 1,000.

Lorrie Thomas, who runs an Internet marketing training firm in California, started implementing changes to her business model early in 2008 and launched a new Web site this March.

“That’s the best part, to do it now,” Thomas told the AP. “Other companies, when the boom kicks back in, they’re going to start doing what I did a year ago.”
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————– This article was submitted by Katie Kapler, Director of Online Strategy for Biz2Credit. Biz2Credit is a small business marketplace that connects entrepreneurs with financing options and advice to grow their business. Send all questions to katie.kapler@biz2credit.com.

As Congress begins the debate on health care reform, health insurers and drug companies stepped up lobbying by 41 percent this year, according to USAToday.

Spending on lobbying dropped overall this year, but an investigation by USAToday found that 20 of the largest health insurance and drug companies spent nearly $35 million in the first quarter of 2009, up more than $10 million from the same period last year.

Insurance and drug companies oppose several aspects of President Barack Obama’s health care plan, especially government-run health insurance coverage. Those groups argue that public insurance will discourage competition and limit consumer choice.

Pfizer, Health Net, Cigna, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and Merck increased spending the most.

Groups that support public insurance fear that a health care reform bill will stall in Congress because of the huge amount of money industry interests are spending to influence legislators.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————– This article was submitted by Katie Kapler, Director of Online Strategy for Biz2Credit. Biz2Credit is a small business marketplace that connects entrepreneurs with financing options and advice to grow their business. Send all questions to katie.kapler@biz2credit.com.

Ever since it became clear that a tanking housing market was the poster child of the recession, anxious homeowners have waited for any good news to surface.

A slight glimmer came in the form of an announcement March 17 that construction of new homes and apartments jumped 22.2 percent in February compared with January, a larger-than-expected bump.

But even that good news was tempered by the fact construction activity is still down 47.3 percent from last year, according to a March 17 story by The Associated Press.

Fundamental weaknesses in the job and credit markets and still-rising inventory are still a major drag on any hope of a real rebound.

All of this was central to the Federal Reserve’s two-day meeting where they left a key bank lending rate at a record low to try to jumpstart the economy.

According to the AP, all areas of the country reported an increase in housing starts in February, except the hard-hit West. Applications for building permits rose, also, gaining 3 percent with permits for single-family homes up 11 percent.

Now economists are watching for signs historically low interest rates may finally be triggering inflation.

Core inflation, which excludes energy and food, edged up 0.2 percent in February, only slightly higher than the 0.1 percent gain economists had expected, the AP said. Core prices had risen 0.4 percent in January, the AP said.

“Only last summer, Fed officials had started to worry that a surge in energy costs could spread to other areas of the economy and boost inflation to unacceptable levels,” the AP said. “But after the financial crisis struck in the fall, the Fed switched signals and is now aggressively fighting a deepening recession with no real threat of inflation.”

Ironically, economy-wide job loss has tempered inflation fears as widespread layoffs depress wage demands, the AP said. Many economists say the Fed will not even contemplate interest rate increases until the unemployment rate, which soared to a 25-year high of 8.1 percent in February, declines, the AP said.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————– This article was submitted by Kathleen O’Connor, a contributing writer for Biz2Credit. Biz2Credit is a small business marketplace that provides entrepreneurs with the latest industry news and financial advice. Send all questions to info@biz2credit.com.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have different forecasts for the world economy over the next two years.

The World Bank expects the global economy to shrink by about 3 percent in 2009, a bleaker assessment than 1.7 percent contraction the bank initially predicted, said the SME Times.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick said that even as developed countries begin to stabilize, poor countries will continue to feel the aftershocks of the global recession in the coming years, reported the SME Times.

Developed economies will continue to suffer from high unemployment and slumping exports in 2009, said Zoellick.

The IMF, however, said in a briefing paper the global economy could expand by 2.4 percent in 2010, according to the Wall Street Journal. That expansion would be driven largely by investment and stimulus spending by developing countries, said the paper.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————– This article was submitted by Katie Kapler, Director of Online Strategy for Biz2Credit. Biz2Credit is a small business marketplace that connects entrepreneurs with financing options and advice to grow their business. Send all questions to katie.kapler@biz2credit.com.