(Reuters) – Standard & Poor’s downgraded the credit ratings of nine euro- zone countries, stripping France and Austria of their coveted triple-A status but not EU paymaster Germany, in a Black Friday the 13th for the troubled single currency area.

“Today’s rating actions are primarily driven by our assessment that the policy initiatives that have been taken by European policymakers in recent weeks may be insufficient to fully address ongoing systemic stresses in the eurozone,” the U.S.-based ratings agency said in a statement.

In a potentially more ominous setback, negotiations on a debt swap by private creditors seen as crucial to avert a Greek default that would rock Europe and the world economy broke up without agreement in Athens, although officials said more talks are likely next week.

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From Gallup:

Small-business owners in the United States are most likely to say complying with government regulations (22%) is the most important problem facing them today, followed by consumer confidence in the economy (15%) and lack of consumer demand (12%).

Rounding out small-business owners’ top five problems in the Oct. 3-6 Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index poll is lack of credit at 10% and poor leadership by government and the president at 9%.

Looking ahead to 2012, approximately one in three small-business owners say they are very or moderately worried about going out of business.

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From Entrepreneur:

The Occupy Wall Street movement has very different objectives from most small-business owners. Doug Schoen, a political pollster and Fox News analyst, recently surveyed 200 protesters and concluded that the majority of the movement’s members want higher taxes to redistribute wealth and heavier regulation on the private sector. But most small-business owners have been calling for less regulation and lower taxes to get the economy going again.

Moreover, most small-business owners believe in the capitalist system, while Occupy Wall Street expresses some anti-capitalist views. Take a look at some statements made in the movement’s first official release. “Corporations … have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions…. have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ health care and pay…. [and] have spent millions of dollars … to get … out of contracts in regards to health insurance.”

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From today’s New York Post:

The White House narrative on how the country lost its triple-A rating and began a descent toward Third World status goes something like this:

Standard & Poors woke up Friday morning and out of the blue decided to downgrade Uncle Sam’s debt despite the administration’s best efforts to show the wrong-headedness of the S&P analysis.

Don’t buy it.

Yes, last Friday saw lots of meetings in Washington with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner & Co. haranguing S&P executives with phony evidence that they’re getting a handle on the nation’s $14 trillion and rising debt, and the rotten economy that has squeezed tax revenues. But the fact remains, federal debt is set to grow for the foreseeable future, even with the spending cuts imposed in the recent debt-ceiling deal.

More important, the downgrade should hardly have been a surprise for the administration — it was among the most telegraphed in the history of downgrades.

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From The Associated Press:

Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s on Friday downgraded the United States’ credit rating first time in the history of the ratings.

The credit rating agency said that it is cutting the country’s top AAA rating by one notch to AA-plus. The credit agency said that it is making the move because the deficit reduction plan passed by Congress on Tuesday did not go far enough to stabilize the country’s debt situation.

A source familiar with the discussions said that the Obama administration feels the S&P’s analysis contained “deep and fundamental flaws.”

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Here’s a question: Why is repealing the Bush tax cuts such a constant obsession for the Democratic Party? Especially the top rates for the most successful earners and small business entrepreneurs?

It seems this is the Democratic answer for every single issue, every problem, every debate.

This, of course, saddens me enormously.

And so, always ready to help, I am recommending a 12-Step program to help them overcome their anger, resentment, and obsession over the Bush tax cuts. Democrats really need a Higher Power on this.

First, when tax rates were lowered across-the-board in mid-2003, the incentive effect kicked in to jump-start the economy immediately. Over the next four and a half years, before the financial meltdown slammed the economy– and that was a credit event, not a fiscal one—8.2 million jobs were created.

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Late yesterday, the highly respected credit rating firm, Moody’s Investor Services, officially warned that if there is no imminent progress in Congress on the debt ceiling fight, the United States of America’s Aaa credit rating would be cut. Understanding that such a draconian event as a U.S. credit downgrade would infuriate voters; it should not come as any surprise that the media was distracted today over news that the Manhattan Attorney’s office happened to issue a criminal subpoena to Goldman Sachs for insider trading and securities fraud earlier this morning.

Goldman Sachs is the perfect scapegoat to blame for America’s credit woes. The firm is the largest investment bank in the world and its history of ethics violations are legendary. Goldman agreed to pay $550 million to settle Federal claims that it misled investors in a subprime mortgage product just as the housing market began to collapse. Essentially the company recommended to its individual, hedge fund, bank, and money manager clients that they make investments in sub-prime mortgages loans Goldman Sachs was betting were already failing. The settlement was among the largest in the 76-year history of the Securities and Exchange Commission, but it represented only a small financial hiccup for Goldman, which reported a profit of $13.39 billion for 2009, the worst period of the credit crisis.

Goldman Sachs has shown its appreciation to each of America’s political parties by donating handsomely to their elections success.

As a show of appreciation, U.S. taxpayers have been very good to Goldman Sachs.

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Folks in need of cash often depend on a federal tax refund to help them through a tough time.  Prior to this year, they might go to a tax preparer like H&R Block to get their returns completed.  Since it might take several weeks to get a refund, H&R Block and many other tax preparation services would offer the client a loan against their federal tax refund.  A bank would fund that loan, because the bank would have the refund signed over to it, and IRS refunds are guaranteed by the Federal Government.

But now, President Obama’s Nanny State is quashing these loans, forcing those folks into more expensive options.

Refund Anticipation Loans (RALs) have APR’s of around 100%, meaning that a $2,000 refund might cost the client $100 while waiting three weeks or so for their refund.  Nanny Statists and ignorant consumer activist groups like the Consumer Federation of America decide that’s just too much to pay for a loan.

Because, after all, they need to decide for us.

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In a hail-mary attempt to garner main street support for Democrats before the elections put an end to the legislative season, President Obama finally was able to push the small business lending bill through the Senate, thanks to two retiring Republicans who crossed the aisle to vote for the stimulus package.

While I don’t believe that this bill is the right way to grow small businesses, and by extension, jobs, I want to let you know some ways that you can take advantage of this bill. Most importantly, keep in mind that much of the money behind this bill is designed to relax credit- reminiscent of banks loosening credit limits leading up to the real estate bubble. Trying to entice businesses into a loan just because it is available is just as bad as having tight credit. Keep that in mind as you consider these options.

Government created incentives for small banks to lend
Financially secure small banks will have access to $30 billion in funds to loan to small businesses. What’s in it for the banks? If they can increase their small business lending by ten percent over the previous year, they will have access to the funds at interest rates near one percent.

Write-offs for startups, long-term investors
The amount that new businesses can invest and consequently write-off will quadruple from $5000 to $20000. Companies who make eligible investments will pay nothing in capital gains taxes on those investments for five years. Businesses can also write-off qualifying business location improvements, property acquisitions, and health care costs for themselves and their families.

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As the Central Illinois 9/12 Project has briefly written about in the past, one form of banking in which Shorebank is engaged is microfinance, especially in foreign countries. As this is not a type of finance that is well known to the general public, we will discuss briefly what microfinancing is, how it is used in conjunction with green initiatives and Sharia law, and how Shorebank is using this type of financing in their banking processes.

The Consultive Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) defines microfinance as simply “the  supply of loans, savings, and other basic financial services to the poor.”  These loans are generally relatively small, but carry with them a high interest rate due to costs incurred by defaulting on loans and the transaction costs that are disproportionate to the size of the loan.  (The cost of manpower and other factors needed to make the loan are the same regardless of the size of the loan – thus for smaller loans, the  percentage of these costs in relation to the amount of the loan is greater.)  Specifically, the microfinancing industry enables people to receive loans when they would not otherwise be able to do so, whether due to poverty, lack of a bank account, inability to provide collateral, and/or inability to prove employment. In 2007, there were 873 microfinance institutions worldwide serving more than 133 million loan recipients.

Microfinance was initially, and oftentimes still is, aimed at providing loans and opportunities to those who otherwise may not have the funds to get a business off of the ground, but microfinance is sometimes tied into other things such as green initiatives. Shorebank, a community development bank whose practices the Central Illinois 912 Project has highlighted before, is a partner in an eco entrepreneurship through a project called “Yurtcozy.” This initiative allows individuals to “offset their carbon footprint” by buying carbon credits which enable a microfinance loan recipient to receive funding  for things such as energy efficient appliances and solar lighting. It may also finance education on clean energy for microfianance recipients and partnerships in green initiatives. Yurtcozy asserts that if the carbon credit purchases were made for all microfinance loan recipients worldwide, then loan recipients could decrease their carbon emissions by 260 million tons, and thirty percent of their income would be unlocked.

One of Shorebank’s first forays into microfinance was through the establishment of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1983. Grameen Bank was founded by Mohammed Yumus, a Noble Peace Prize Recipient in 2006 and 2009 recipient of the Congressional Medal of Freedom from President Obama. Yumus’ description of the features of Grameencredit includes stating that “credit is a right,” and it’s built on “trust” (i.e., social justice in banking.)

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President Obama says he’s going to have a “serious talk” with bankers today to pressure them to provide more credit. Why? Well, because if you’re upside down on your house and want to take advantage of low rates, your bank is just as likely to say, “eh, no thanks, we’ll just keep making money.” We’ll discuss this and more on today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, a daily podcast from The New Ledger on politics, policy and the marketplace with Francis Cianfrocca, brought to you by BigGovernment.com.

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Related Links:

TNL: Want to Refinance? Tough Luck Pal
Business Insider: Citi’s TARP Repayment Bilks Taxpayers
Bloomberg: Obama to Have “Serious Talk” With Bankers
NYT: Refinancing Woes Mount