The loss of credit is hurting small businesses, contributing to Spain’s troubles by raising unemployment and cutting tax revenues, making it harder to bring its budget deficit down to manageable levels.

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Small and Medium Businesses Suffer as Spain Bank Loans Shrivel

The Senate held two votes Thursday on measures to ensure that student loan rates for millions of college students do not double in July — and at the conclusion of the legislative action, the issue remained exactly where it began: stuck. Read full article > >

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Senate fails to agree on student-loan-rate freeze

Charges for single use carrier bags is a burden on small businesses and harming tourism in Wales, it is claimed by the TaxPayers’ Alliance .

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Bid to scrap carrier bag charges

In countries hardest hit by the downturn, including Ireland and Italy, small-business men and entrepreneurs are increasingly taking their own lives.

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Increasingly in Europe, Suicides ‘by Economic Crisis’

Gay rights activists vowed Thursday to step up political pressure on the White House over President Obama’s refusal to sign a nondiscrimination executive order, with some decrying the decision as an attempt to avoid controversy before the November election. Read full article > >

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Gay rights groups vow more pressure on Obama to sign nondiscrimination order

The idea has a wonderfully simple and powerful appeal: Give a tiny loan to a poor person in a poor nation. Watch her start a small business — whether hawking tomatoes or fattening goats — that puts her and her family on the first rung of a ladder that will elevate them out of poverty and into the middle class. Repeat across the planet. Read full article > >

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Microcredit doesn’t end poverty, despite all the hype

The federal government is doing a poor job of coordinating its responsibilities in dozens of areas, including food safety, breast cancer research, assistance to small business owners and home buyers and background investigations for federal job applicants — a disorganization that could be costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars annually, according to a new report. Read full article > >

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GAO: Overlapping government programs cost billions

“I elevated the SBA [Small Business Administration] administrator to a Cabinet level position so that they are talking directly to me, so that there is no one in between me and the SBA when they are advocating on behalf of small business. …And [even after a reorganization] I’ll still have an SBA administrator in my Cabinet who’s advocating directly for small businesses.” Read full article > >

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President Obama’s small business bobble

As sprawling e-commerce companies like Amazon act more like their big-box brethren, little sites are fighting back with some tactics of their own.

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Some Shoppers Rebel Against Giant Web Retailers

It is the final day of his best year at work, and Keith Lazar, 62, settles into his corner office at the community bank. He eats a doughnut with a fork and turns on an instrumental CD titled “Relaxation.” Outside his office window, the town square is bustling with proof of his impact during the past 12 months: trucks financed by his loans, restaurants expanding because of his savings advice and small businesses created with his support. Read full article > >

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‘Life is good’ in Iowa’s Washington, but the candidates keep raising alarms

Union Hardware in Bethesda is 97 years old and has blue-collar roots. Founders Abraham and Jennie Goldberg chose the name “Union” because of the growing strength of labor unions at the time. Like many small businesses, over the years the store has lured customers away from big-box competitors with the folksy tagline, “It’s about service.” Read full article > >

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Bathrooms as art? How to save a business by going high-end

Councils and large firms offer £3m in emergency help to try to stop small businesses affected by last month’s riots from going under.

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Companies launch riot help fund

Our country is facing two related but separate crises. The first is the federal government’s debt crisis, the result of decades of fiscal mismanagement by both political parties as well as unsustainable entitlement commitments. The second is the jobs crisis, which has resulted in painful levels of unemployment and underemployment. President Obama is wrong to think that the answer is to increase spending or raise taxes when so many millions of Americans are out of work. In fact, the Obama administration’s anti-business , hyper-regulatory, pro-tax agenda has fueled economic uncertainty and sent the message from the administration that “we want to make it harder to create jobs.” There is no other conclusion for policies such as the new Environmental Protection Agency regulations, including the “ Transport Rule ,” which could eliminate thousands of jobs, or the ozone regulation that would cost upward of $1 trillion and millions of jobs in the construction industry over the next decade. The administration’s new maximum achievable control technology standards for cement are expected to affect nearly 100 cement plants, setting over-the-top requirements resulting in increased costs and possibly thousands of jobs being offshored. There is the president’s silence as the National Labor Relations Board seeks to prevent Boeing from opening a plant in South Carolina that would create thousands of jobs. Such behavior, coupled with the president’s insistence on raising the top tax rate paid by individuals and small businesses, has resulted in a lag in growth that has added to the debt crisis, contributing to our nation’s credit downgrade. Read full article > >

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Removing the obstacles to economic growth

Small business owners on picking up the pieces after the riots

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‘Like a warzone’

What would you do to improve your shot at the MBA program of your dreams? Start a small business? Or a nonprofit, perhaps? Travel the world to bulk up your personal narrative? Maybe even drop $10,000 on a prep course? If you’re aiming for the Stanford Graduate School of Business, you may well be tempted to do all of the above. “From the classmate who climbed Mount Everest to the one who started a microfinance organization for individual entrepreneurs, these are the people who are your classmates and will ultimately become your friends — for life,” says a prerecorded message from Stefan, a Stanford MBA student from Belgium who keeps you company while you’re on hold with the admissions office. Read full article > >

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Would you climb any mountain to get into MBA program of your dreams?