I was reading Mark Cuban's blog where he is talking about the advisers that President Obama has assembled around him and the fact that he has not one single entrepreneur on his team.  Mark further talks about the need for the Government to get in touch with the people who form companies and literally live from job to job, hoping to get paid on time. He says that entrepreneurs who start and run small companies will be the propellant of the economy. I could not agree more.

These are the people who take the real risks, putting their money on the line each and every time and who have to constantly fight Governmental 'red tape'.  Yet many of these companies develop into hugely wealthy enterprises, creating jobs and paying serious amounts of taxes.  We need to locate and nurture this talent.

It seems the fat cat Bankers are at it again, this time back in the UK, the Royal Bank of Scotland saw fit to hold a SECRET 300:000 pounds party for its executives - fair enough you might say, when times are good, but not after receiving 20 billion pounds of bailout money from UK taxpayers!

Still on the Banking scene, it seems that the UK Banks have told the Chancellor that they will not pass on any interest rate cuts to customers as their profit margins are already too tight and they are not 'charities'.  They are absolutely correct - the charity is the UK taxpayer who has had no option but to bail them out with billions of pounds of their own money - the same money the Banks expect the taxpayers to then put back in their pockets so they can make even more!

~Neil 

I have just read an article in a British newspaper about the Chief Executive of failed banking organization Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) being paid a ‘consulting’ fee to help Lloyds TSB, the bank that is taking them over to identify the weaknesses of the company. The fee for this consulting arrangement is a staggering 60:000 pounds per month!

Under his leadership, bad debts have doubled to 5.2 billion over the last five months and although he has forgone a golden goodbye of nearly one million pounds, he has the small consolation of a 2.4 million pension pot and of course the ‘consulting’ relationship, not to mention the potential loss of 20:000 jobs as a result of the Government backed nationalization of high street banks.

There is an argument that it doesn’t really matter if the executive leadership of large, public companies fail, they will probably leave with far more money than most people will see in a lifetime, when of course, the shareholders that back the companies end up losing.

But what about the humble entrepreneurs out there who have huge amounts of desire, ambition and of course, the winning ideas that will ultimately create wealth and jobs? If an entrepreneur fails, he or she will just become another one of many in the statistics of business failures and as most successful entrepreneurs will testify, they are certain to face failure at least once during their journey.

Three good examples of hugely successful entrepreneurs in Britain are Sir Philip Green, Sir Alan Sugar and of course, Sir Richard Branson - did they experience failure? Definitely. What I am saying is that out there is a huge pool of potential and existing entrepreneurial talent and that is the talent that needs nurturing and most of all, Government help.

It is of course election day here in the US and my money is on…

~Neil