Hans van Hoek

After many years in the securities brokerage industry I decided to bolt from Wall Street amid slumping markets and increasing regulations, along with 11,500 other brokers who left at that same time. Many simply gave up waiting for another bull market. I left a large Multi-National Firm to devote my time and energy helping the small business owner. Economic recovery must come from them!

When big businesses get into a bind, the sheer size and calamities of any one of them is such a huge story that politicians feel they must get involved. But remember, there are only a few thousand of those companies. For America’s small businesses, the recent recession created a lot of financial pain, organizational damage and many failures. But when the recent economic conditions caused problems for any one of these 26 million business owners, the story likely didn't even make the local paper.

And as we’ve seen, any help for small businesses from our so-called political “leaders” has been lip service at best and bad policy at worst.

In a recession , what creates jobs in a recovery is small business. I see an increasing number of cases where the small business owner is under siege. From slowdowns in account receivables, credit line decreases which effect working capital and a general pessimistic outlook for the future, the number of small business owners in trouble is growing. Most of these business owners keep marketing the same old way and expect different results....the new business location is the Internet!