Governor Conference/ Walgreens

Small Business California is working on having the Governor call a meeting with Karen Mills, the SBA Administrator, the FDIC, the Federal Reserve and State bank regulators. The purpose of the meeting would be to have the regulators in the same room with the Governor and Ms. Mills to discuss small business lending. When we talk to bankers they tell us they are caught in the middle. They are being told to give loans to small businesses and then when they do, they get slapped on the wrist by the regulators. Yesterday, I talked to a reporter interested in this and he told me that he had discussed the concept with a bankers association and they were very supportive of this. We also have a request made to Mike Rossi, the Economic Development Czar for the Governor.

Recently, it was announced that Walgreens and Anthem were severing their relationship. For those of you with health insurance through Anthem [Blue Cross] how will this affect you and your employees?

Rick Schindel advised that the SBIR program has been extended to December 16th. As an aside in his newsletter, he alluded to a comment by Erskine Bowles. The comment has nothing to do with SBIRs but you may find it amusing. Mr. Bowles says:

“What we are doing doesn’t make common sense. We have a treaty with Taiwan; we’ll protect Taiwan if they are invaded by the Chinese. There’s only one problem with that, we got to borrow the money from the Chinese to do it. It’s crazy”

Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA 94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188