Government & PoliticsSmall Business Incentives Face a Hard Road in CongressPresident Obama’s incentives for small business to create jobs appear to be foundering at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Those proposals — tax credits for hiring and investment and initiatives to spur lending to small firms — all face strong resistance, and not all of it comes from the Senate. Each chamber has embraced separate elements of the administration’s agenda, and, for the moment, none of those elements overlap.Government & PoliticsU.S. Salary-Increase Budgets Hit 25-Year LowChanges to salary structures... [Read Full Article]

Government and PoliticsWhat Obama Said About Small BusinessA short but prominent section of President Obama’s State of the Union focused on helping small businesses to create jobs. Here’s a look at what he said and what it means. BusinessWeek.comGovernment and PoliticsGlobal Workforce Report on Emerging Markets: The Backshoring MythDespite media hype about the recession driving jobs back to the U.S., the business case for outsourcing to the emerging markets remains overwhelming. Workforce.comGovernment and Politics [Read Full Article]

Management and OperationsIdentify New Consumer NormsThe recession has changed how customers shop, possibly forever. Entrepreneur.com Management and Operations Resolving Employee Complaints Before They Hit the Internet The question is what to do about employee complaints about the workplace. It's more than a matter of damage control. Trying to repair the harm to internal morale, recruitment efforts, and corporate reputations after the fact is not as effective as preventing the damage in the first place. ManageSmarter.com Management and Operations [Read Full Article]

Government, Politics, and the Economy U.S. Stocks Extend Global Rally on Retail Sales, APEC Pledge U.S. stocks added to a global rally, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to a 13-month high, after retail sales increased more than forecast and Asian government leaders pledged to maintain economic stimulus spending. Bloomberg.comThe Economy6 Steps for Surviving the RecessionThe news today just is not very good. Every time we think we are on the upside of the downturn, we get thrown for another loop, hit with another tax, told it will be just a few more months before all this turns around. BusinessKnowHow.com... [Read Full Article]

It seems that with rising unemployment and ever tighter budgets, American consumers missed the message that we are in an economic recovery. We hear talk of the recession “bottoming out” or that economists see this or that “good sign” or that the Treasury Secretary has “green shoots” in his sights. The fact is, all these people talking about how the recession is ending would have just as much success predicting what the economy will do if they slaughtered a goat and tried to read the entrails.  If you want to know what the economy is really up to, go to the people who are there, in the trenches, each and every day. Talk to the people who are on the unemployment lines, the salespeople in shops—people who live with the recession and must cope with it every day—not the bureaucrats and statisticians in Washington trying desperately to spin the numbers, including this group and excluding that in order to be able to report something that the Adminis... [Read Full Article]

Government, Politics and the Economy Obama: Small Business Promises Kept and Broken President Obama promised to help Main Street where, but has he kept that promise? Here's a look at where he's followed through -- and where he hasn't. CNNMoney.com Survey Suggests Recession to End This Quarter With recent data suggesting that the recession has bottomed-out, the Blue Chip Economic Indicators survey of private economists showed about 90% of the respondents believe the recession will be declared over this quarter. FoxBusiness.com Management and Operations [Read Full Article]

Government, Politics and the Economy Small Business Job Losses Continue The mass-layoffs in the economy may have slowed, but small companies are still dropping employees to stay afloat. CNNMoney.com SBA's Mills Has the Answers for Small Business SBA chief Karen Mills discusses the challenges facing small business as well as her role in getting struggling companies the help they need. WSJ.com US Unemployment Slows Unemployment slowed last month and the overall un... [Read Full Article]

  Government, Politics and the Economy Seidman: I Don't Want the Recession to End Yet According to Dov Seidman, the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of LRN, we need more time to understand where our economy went wrong and to get Wall Street back into proper perspective. BusinessWeek.com Next Six Months Will be Tough for Obama In his first six months as President, Barack Obama got a $787 billion economic stimulus package, $750 billion for the financial crisis, and a down payment on a $1 trillion overhaul of the healthcare system. With greater policy hurdles before him, the next six mo... [Read Full Article]