Obama's new small-bank financing strategy may help, but entrepreneurs aren't holding their breath.
Check out the latest results of a survey of 805 small-business owners by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group. In the last 420 months that the NFIB has taken that monthly pulse of small-business owners--on everything from profits and inventories to hiring and capital spending--last December marked the second-worst in terms of overall optimism. (The most pessimistic month was recorded during another recession--back in 1980.)