http://bit.ly/ph5QXm National Small Business Week Day 1

The U.S. Small Business Administration's National Small Business Week was held in Washington, D.C., marking the 56th anniversary of the agency, and the 46th annual proclamation of National Small Business Week.

More than 100 small business owners from across the country gathered at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel along with keynotes and panels fro leading speakers including Karen Mills,Administrator , U.S. Small Business Administration and Michael Porter
Bishop William Lawrence University Professor,based at Harvard Business School

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Greece was last night told it must take the axe to the public sector to save the country from financial ruin.The International Monetary Fund urged George Papandreou’s government to cut spending and improve tax collection to avoid a default on its £315bn debt mountain.The Fund, led by former French finance minister Christine Lagarde, said Greece must honour budget pledges to secure a vital £7bn emergency loan.



Get tough: Lagarde wants Papandreou to cut public spending and collect taxes

‘The ball is in the Greek court,’ said Dutchman Bob Traa, the IMF’s representative in Athens.
Greek finance minister Evangelos
Venizelos said international institutions were using Greece as a
‘scapegoat’ to ‘hide their own lack of competence to manage the crisis’.

He insisted Athens would deliver on
its promises ‘despite the fact that we are living through a recession
that is unprecedented’.
 



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It is feared that Greece is on the
verge of defaulting on its debts and quitting the single currency in a
move that could plunge the eurozone deep into recession.
In a sign of mounting stress in the
region, the euro tumbled and borrowing costs in Italy and Spain rose
further above 5 per cent on concerns about their debt levels. Stock
markets across Europe fell, with bank shares bearing the brunt of the
sell-off. Greece will run out of money next month if it does not get the
sixth tranche of the £96bn bailout agreed last year.
Venizelos last night joined a crucial
conference call with inspectors from the IMF, the European Central Bank
and the European Union – the ‘Troika’ – in an effort to secure the
emergency funds.
The Troika is understood to have drawn
up a raft of measures to be implemented by Greece – including 100,000
job cuts in the public sector, 20,000 more than previously planned, and
the closure of state bodies.
Traa said: ‘The public sector is very large. Another central element in our view must be to reduce public sector spending.
‘This will inevitably require the
closure of inefficient state entities as well as reductions in the
excessively large public sector workforce and generous public sector
wages, which in some cases are above those of the equivalent private
sector workers.’
He said Greece should concentrate on
collecting more tax rather than raising taxes or bringing in new ones
given the economy is expected to shrink by 5.5 per cent this year and
2.5 per cent in 2012.
‘You should not be drawn to higher and
higher taxes,’ he said. ‘This will neither be economically or
politically sustainable. The increase in revenues must come from
improving collection.’