Government, Politics and the Economy Does The Small Business Majority Represent You? Don't Bet on It! They conduct polls and claim to represent all small business by not representing any particular small business. Who are they and what are they all about? We have some answers. NYTimes.com Obama's Health, Energy Legislation Facing Democrats' Questionable Support The fates of President Obama's top two priorities: extending health coverage to the uninsured and reducing greenhouse gases, rest in the hands of a group of pivotal Democratic senators, and so far they don't seem convinced. Bloomberg.com Management and... [Read Full Article]

It’s nere, and it’s going to revolutionize the corporate office I have to wonder if what the Vice-President said was true or just another one of his personable gaffes, like advising (on national TV) that people avoid planes and other crowded, enclosed places during the height of the swine flu scare. I mean, was it Joe being Joe, or does he have a point? Is a renewal of trade unions key to the rebuilding of the American middle class? His comments, made to a conference of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, presuppose that there is a connection between the labor movement and the middle class and it likewise presupposes that the Vice-President can, in fact, define the term “middle class.” People talk about the middle class all the time, yet if you try to pin it down to some concrete demographic, things get a bit hazy. Do you define it by income? If so, plenty of people making six digits but living in expensive areas could be middle clas... [Read Full Article]

  Government and Economy White House Predicts Zero Job Growth This Year Christina Romer, Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, expects the GDP to begin growing in the fourth quarter of this year, but she also expects unemployment to rise after the economy turns, saying the GDP must grow at 2.5% before unemployment improves. NYTimes.com Intense Bargaining Earns Banks Stress Test Concessions After two weeks of intense negotiations, the Fed scaled back the size of the capital hole facing some of the nation's biggest banks shortly before concluding its stress tests, using a measurement of bank-capital levels that resulted in much smaller capital... [Read Full Article]

Government and Economy The Obama Rescue Plan President-elect Obama's economic stimulus plan is still coming together, but the goals are clear: To spur the economy and create jobs by spending hundreds of billions of dollars on infrastructure, state budget relief, safety nets for the needy and tax cuts. Here is where things stand. Business Groups File Suit to Block E-Verify Business groups, including the US Chamber of Commerce, have filed a federal lawsuit to block a new rule requiring federal contractors to use the E-Verify system to check their employees’ eligibility to work in the US. The law is scheduled to go into effect Jan. 15. [Read Full Article]