In February of 2008, President Obama released the statement, “It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants.” Every year since 2006, the Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General (SBA OIG) has released a report, which listed the agency’s #1 management challenge as, “Procurement flaws allow large firms to obtain small business awards and agencies to count contracts performed by large firms towards their small business goals.” ( http://www.barackobama.com/2008/02/26/the_american_small_business_le.php , http://www.sba.gov/idc/groups/public/documents/sba/oig_reports_tmc_fy09.pdf ) Since 2003, over 15 federal investigations have found that billions of dollars a year in federal small business contracts are diverted to some of the largest corporations in the world. The most recent statistics released by the Obama Administration indicate that hundreds of Fortune 500 corporations, their subsidiaries and other large businesses were included in the government’s fiscal year (FY) 2008 small business contracting data. ( http://www.asbl.com/documents/20090825TopSmallBusinessContractors2008.pdf ) Firms that received federal small business contracts included: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, GTSI, L-3 Communications, British Aerospace (BAE), Northrop Grumman, Booz Allen Hamilton, Thales, General Dynamics, 3M, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T, Rolls-Royce and Dell Computer.

Join us LIVE Saturday at our NEW TIME – 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern and Sunday at 5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern on www.TalkRadioOne.com for our exclusive LIVE motoring and motorsports talk shows! NEW TIME! Steve Parker’s The Car Nut Show Saturday starting at our NEW TIME — 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern Nissan’s all-new 2011 Leaf “pure EV” is making a US national tour starting November 13th in southern California and traveling throughout America until it arrives in New York City – Get all the dates and places and the facts and figures … including price … on the Leaf! Nissan displayed a production version of Leaf at the Tokyo Motor Show last week, becoming king of the EVs and hybrids


 
 Bernard Madoff was apparently convinced that it never even occurred to Securities and Exchange Commission staff he was running a Ponzi scheme, despite the agency’s numerous probes of his business. A document released Friday details a prison interview conducted in June by the SEC inspector general in which Madoff says he had the impression that “it never entered the SEC’s mind that it was a Ponzi scheme.” Madoff confided that he didn’t bring an attorney with him when he testified in an inquiry by the SEC’s enforcement division because he believed he didn’t need one — and he was trying to fool the government investigators into thinking he had nothing to hide.

NEW YORK — Grim signals about consumer spending ripped through the markets Friday, sending stocks tumbling as investors raced for safe havens. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index and the Nasdaq composite index ended with losses for October, breaking a streak of seven months of gains.

The Center for Responsive Politics reports that total federal lobbying expenditures topped $849 million in the third quarter, setting a new record since firms began filing reports quarterly. The health sector is the year’s top lobbying spender, pouring $396 million to lobbying federal lawmakers on health care reform since January — an increase of six percent compared to the same period last year. CRP reports that the total year-to-date spending is now a staggering $2.5 billion.


 
 Grim signals about consumer spending ripped through the markets Friday, sending stocks tumbling as investors raced for safe havens. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index and the Nasdaq composite index ended with losses for October, breaking a streak of seven straight months of gains. The Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 250 points, erasing a 200-point gain Thursday and ending the month flat.

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