Small Business

In the tight-money world of small business owners, the occasion seemed more worthy of a bottle of bubbly than a steaming cup of Honduran dark roast. But java is the specialty of Green Street Coffee Roasters, the 17-month-old South Philadelphia company owned by brothers Chris and Tom Molieri. Early last week, the Molieris were celebrating a $10,000 loan for equipment they had just secured. They were also raising a cup to the entity that made it happen – Entrepreneur Works. It is a community development financial institution, or CDFI, one of a network of nearly 1,000 mostly nonprofit entities nationwide devoted to helping entrepreneurs overcome what stymies so many of them: access to capital.

PARIS - Europe needs jobs, and French entrepreneur Daniel Joutard wants to create them, hiring more employees for his skin-care products company. Yet he can't take the risk - in large part because of France's inflexible workplace protections. The 37-year-old is among thousands of small- and medium-size business owners who will be crucial to helping France - like other countries in Europe - reduce a double-digit jobless rate, and ultimately shrink its hefty state budget deficit by bringing in more tax revenues.

Small-business owners' concerns about government policies have intensified since the deep recession and a recovery that doesn't feel much better. Karen Kerrigan serves the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council as president, and Raymond Keating is its chief economist. The 18-year-old council, which has 100,000 members, takes a stand similar to other groups: Small businesses are struggling because they have to contend with too many taxes and regulations - words that are coming up a lot in presidential campaign speeches, videos, and commercials.

NEW YORK - Small business is almost always an issue in presidential campaigns. This year, it's morphed into one of the biggest. Getting the backing of the small-business community is important for most political candidates. Small-company owners are often influencers: They are well-known in their cities and towns and they employ voters with a vested interest in the challenges that they face. The Republican Party and Mitt Romney have been talking about small business for months, focusing on voter concerns such as taxes and health care as small-business issues.

Just because some businesses are labeled "small" doesn't mean they aren't trying to solve some big problems. Consider Radnor-based Novira Therapeutics Inc. , which is developing antiviral drugs to treat chronic hepatitis B and HIV infections. Both are serious conditions. There were about 34.2 million people worldwide living with HIV infection in 2011, including about 1.2 million in the United States. Hepatitis B infection, which is rare in the United States thanks to infant vaccinations, attacks the liver and is a major health problem in Asia, particularly China.

NEW YORK - On his way to becoming a congressman from his hometown of Janesville, Wis., Paul Ryan worked in a small business - a construction company with roots that reach back to the firm that his great-grandfather started in 1884. Although the future GOP vice presidential candidate worked at Ryan Inc. Central doing marketing for just a short time - in 1997-98 - that experience may help the Romney-Ryan ticket. The obstacles that small businesses face hiring more workers are among the biggest issues in this presidential election.

Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan barnstormed across Pennsylvania Tuesday, trying to return the focus of the campaign to the economy and President Obama's supposed hostility to small business after a detour of several days' debate over abortion and Medicare. Not only has Obama burdened business with more regulation, his recent "you didn't build that" remark was a moment when the president "lowers the veil and we see what is going on in his mind and the philosophy of government he has," Ryan told a cheering crowd of about 3,000 outside the American Helicopter Museum and Education Center near West Chester.

This summer, many small businesses that depend on high temperatures got more than they bargained for. Across the nation, July was the hottest month ever in the continental United States, according to the government's National Climatic Data Center. It was also the driest since 2001, according to Planalytics Inc., a Berwyn company that analyzes weather and retailing trends. Records for high temperatures and lack of rain were broken in many areas. August has been pretty warm and muggy in many parts of the country.

The biggest Internet retailer, Amazon.com , has switched sides in the 20-year fight over whether and how online consumers ought to pay state sales taxes. Once carefully sales-tax-averse as a mostly online enterprise, Amazon has built a network of 76 giant warehouses, including sites in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, and has been adding secure boxes and other local facilities to handle returns, software and customer service. (It's as if Amazon expects that the U.S. Postal Service really will die of congressional neglect, and wants to make sure its freight still gets through.)

IMAGINE that you're a dentist here with a thriving practice and you need to buy a building to expand. No problem. There are any number of places for you to turn. Or, you say you're the chairman of a law firm and your partners need all sorts of business and personal financial services? Again, easy as pie. But, let's assume, you have just graduated from a micro-entrepreneurship training program in the inner-city and you need to borrow $5,000 for a used oven to bake your incomparable cupcakes?