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Posted by: Kim_Hamilton on 11/18/2008 06:51 PM
Updated by: Kim_Hamilton on 11/18/2008 06:53 PM
Expires: 01/01/2013 12:00 AM
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Governor Schwarzenegger Addresses First Ever Conference on Small Business & Entrepreneurship, Launches Global Entrepreneurship Week.....Video and Transcript Enclosed
Los Angeles, CA....Furthering his commitment to support California's small businesses in their contribution to the health and power of the state's economy, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today launched Global Entrepreneurship Week at the first-ever Governor's Conference on Small Business & Entrepreneurship. The conference is being held at the Renaissance Montura Hotel in Los Angeles on November 18 and 19....
Click To Watch Video
"The California economy is led by the creativity and vision of our entrepreneurs and small business leaders," said Governor Schwarzenegger. "As we deal with the current economic climate, my administration is committed to working with our small business entrepreneurs on how we can unleash the power of their ingenuity to maintain our state's leadership in the global economy - because small business drives California's diverse economy, and small business will drive our economic recovery."
The Governor invited leaders of small business organizations and entrepreneurs representing the spectrum of the state's economy to the Conference to discuss ideas on improving the partnership between the private sector and state government to stimulate the economy. Since May, individuals from these groups have been preparing over 100 draft proposals for discussion by conference participants on topics ranging from access to capital to regulatory reform.
The Governor's Conference on Small Business & Entrepreneurship coincides with Global Entrepreneurship Week, which was created to engage young people across national boundaries and inspire the entrepreneurial urge of the next generation. Global Entrepreneurship Week takes place November 17 - 23 and features hundreds of youth-oriented activities in more than 75 participating countries.
Other speakers at the Governor's Conference on Small Business & Entrepreneurship include: Tom Hayes, author of the Jump Point and Silicon Valley columnist Mike Malone, who will lead an exciting discussion on the future of business; Louis Rossetto, co-founder of Wired magazine and Dan Rose, vice president of Facebook, who will explore the network of entrepreneurs and the digital explosion; David Fischer, vice president of global online sales and operations at Google and Janine Popick, founder and chief executive officer of Vertical Response, who will provide insights into how small businesses can establish themselves in the global market. Additional speakers include Phil Romero, dean of the California State University Los Angeles School of Business; Elizabeth O'Connor, economist and vice president of Capital Strategy Research, Inc.; and Arel Moodie, founder and chief executive officer of Placefinder.com, among others. Notable attendees include the leadership team for the California Community Colleges and representatives from California's most influential small business groups.
Small businesses comprise 98 percent of all enterprises in California. With more than 3.6 million small businesses in the state, they employ more than 52 percent of the state's workforce. Since assuming office, the Governor has been committed to supporting and growing California small businesses. To date, he has:
* Appointed Marty Keller as the Small Business Advocate in the Office of the Governor to advise on issues affecting California's small business community and promote policies to encourage the growth of more small businesses in the state.
* Achieved over 25 percent in small business participation in state contracts procurement since 2007, exceeding the goal required by his executive order.
* Worked on behalf of minority-owned and small businesses to improve the state's business climate and create jobs to promote economic growth.
* Fixed California's broken workers' compensation system which has saved California $24.7 billion in premiums to insured and self-insured plans.
* Issued an executive order encouraging small, disadvantaged businesses to participate in California's infrastructure growth and play a key role in rebuilding the state's transportation infrastructure.
* Announced a joint effort to provide more than $100 million in venture capital to expanding small businesses in the Los Angeles area.
GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER:
Thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you very much, Senator Scott, Jack Scott. This is a great, great man. And like he said, that we became kind of soul mates in the Capitol, even though he's a Democrat. I'm married to one. People always say, "How can you live together, a Democrat and a Republican?"
I always tell them, I say, "Look, love conquers all." (Laughter) I mean, when I was at the altar and I married Maria, I said I would take this woman in sickness and in health and being a Democrat is a sickness. So what? (Laughter) Who cares, right? (Laughter) But the good thing is -- have a little humor. (Laughter)
The good thing is that we are a good example of how we actually can work together and be together and of course that's what I try to inspire people in California and especially in Sacramento to do.
And we were a perfect example. When I look at Jack Scott I never looked at him, is he a Democrat or a Republican? It makes no difference. He's for education, he's for children, he's for helping this country, he's for helping this state and helping us all and working very hard up there in Sacramento and being a great public servant. That's important. So let's give him a big hand for his great, great leadership. (Applause)
I also want to just say that there are other people here, Assemblyman Curren Price and Chancellor Woodruff and Secretary Dale Bonner, Secretary Rosario Marín, then Carl Schramm from the Kaufman Foundation, who has been very, very helpful in pulling this together. As a matter of fact, all of the people that I've mentioned have been really working hard to pull this together. And I want to say a special thank you to Cynthia Bryant from the Office of Planning and Research and also for Marty Keller, who is our Business Advocate. Let's give them also a big, big hand. (Applause)
Now, I'm very pleased that all of you came. And I want to say thank you very much for the time that you've given us here, I know that everyone has a very busy schedule but you made it here. And I think this conference is very important. As Senator Scott already said, this is the first conference that we've had of its kind, organized by the Governor's Office and we wanted to bring everyone together, to bring you together and to craft, basically, a plan, a plan to lead our economy into the next era. This is what this is about. So this is not a conference where we just dialogue but where we want to create some really great action and create a good partnership.
Each of you sitting here today are representing the future and you are visionaries and you are innovators and we really appreciate that. You are playing a vital role in the future of this state. Small businesses drive our economy, we know that and small businesses will drive our recovery during this very difficult time.
Sacramento does not have all the answers and so we need the answers from you. And I think that Jack again can tell you that when we needed answers on how to improve education we didn't go and look around in Sacramento. We looked outside. We got together with education leaders, with teachers and people from the Parent Teachers Association, school principals, all of those people that gave us the answers on how to improve education, what to do about moving education forward.
The same is with nurses. I remember when I came to the Governor's Office in 2003 we had a shortage of nurses. And we then went out to talk to the nurses, talk to the hospitals and to the teachers and to the community colleges. What can we do? And they gave us a program and they gave us the ideas and now today we have 14,000 more nurses.
And the same is again with the business leaders that are here today. We want to have input from you. That is the important thing. I always say that small businesses are California's backbone and this is not just something we say, it is a fact.
As a matter of fact, I was fortunate enough that ever since I have come to this country that I was doing some business and owning some business, if it is in the beginning, 40 years ago, to have a little bricklaying business when I came here, or to have a mail-order business and to sell training programs through the mail about how to build your body and how to get a chest like a fortress and stuff like that. (Laughter) Those were the kind of booklets that I sold, how to get mega-biceps and all those kind of things and I made a lot of money from those courses. But this was all running a business and meeting payroll and paying for benefits for your employees and all of those kind of things. And then later on, of course, we got into the production business and producing films and the restaurant business and so on.
So there were all kinds of businesses, so I know what it is like to sign a check in the front, because most of the people in Sacramento only know how to sign a check on the back, trust me. (Applause)
Now, there are some great, great numbers here. There are more than 3.6 million small businesses in our state. As you know, small businesses comprise 98 percent of all the enterprises in California and employ more than 52 percent of our workforce, so these are really staggering numbers. And we need your ideas, as I have said, because you have the experience and you're out there.
These are difficult economic times, of course, right now. You see it probably every day when you and work out there. I see it every day. I mean the mortgage meltdown, the high unemployment rate, the stock market rollercoaster ride, that's always going up and down. All of that has, of course, created a projected $11.2 billion budget shortfall for the state of California.
And the reason why I'm mentioning that is, as if you don't have your own problems but the reason why I'm mentioning that is because it does have an effect on you and I think that's important in a partnership to recognize that, because when we are short on revenues, that means that we don't have as much money for hospitals and for health care. That means that we don't have as much money for education and for law enforcement. It means that we don't have as much money for the prisons, to keep the prisoners locked up.
So all of this has a tremendous affect on you and I think that it is important for you to know that we are doing everything possible in the state to make sure that we meet these obligations and that we fill that hole. And this is why Democrats and Republicans are now negotiating in Sacramento on how to come to a compromise, which is so important again, that Democrats and Republicans come to a compromise where we do half of that in cuts and half of that in revenue increases.
And of course that again has an effect on you and I think it is very important that we recognize that the state has certain obligations to you because you are hardworking, you're doing your business, you pay your payroll and do all those things and you pay your taxes. But we have the obligation, of course, to make sure that you have a friendly business environment, that we are making California a business friendly state.
And that's why, when I came into office we lowered the benefits, the disability -- what was it, the unemployment -- the Workers' Comp, exactly, thank you -- the Workers' Comp insurance and now those rates have come down now by 70 percent. So there are things that we need to do and we need to come to a conclusion with this budget, because it has a bad effect on everybody.
And so I think that we will do our share and we wanted to promise you that. Of course, the business leaders know this better than anyone else, because you know when it comes to the bottom line, when the bottom line does not come out the way you expect it to come out, that there are certain cuts that you need to make. And I think that time has now come for a lot of businesses here in California and it also has come for our state.
The important thing also is that's why we have a special session now where we deal with the unemployment rate, where we want to stimulate the economy. And where we also want to make sure that we keep people in their homes, because there are too many people that go through foreclosure. And I think that it is terrible to see the mistakes that were made by the lenders and also by the borrowers but that doesn't help us to look back now at where the mistakes were made. The key thing now is to keep our people in their homes, which will also help our economy.
I talked yesterday again to some builders and they are in a disastrous situation because a lot of homes are half-finished, people are not interested in buying it -- even though those numbers are coming back right now of more and more people buying homes again because the prices are so low. But we really need to go and do everything we can to keep the people in their homes right now, so I hope that we solve this problem also in our special session.
And also, the other thing that we want to do in the special session is solve our problem with the unemployment insurance, because as you know -- probably some of you don't know but our unemployment insurance benefits are running out in January and so this is why it is important now. And the reason, of course, is because previous administrations have increased the benefits. Now, when you increase the benefits you also at the same time have to talk about where do the revenues come from, to increase those benefits? And, of course, no one thought about that. So now, of course, eventually that catches up with you and right now in January it's catching up with us. So we already have asked the federal government for help but I think that again it's a compromise where we have to take some of those benefits away and increase some of the contribution to the unemployment insurance.
So these are the kind of things that we are working on; we want to make sure that we are working with you on all of this.
The most important thing is to recognize, as we go through this down period economically, is that there is also good news and I think the good news is that even though our housing market has taken a major hit and normally other states have a tremendous decline in their economy, we in California, we are actually flat with our economy. So even though we took a major hit, we are flat in the economy. And the reason for that is because we have so many other economies that are holding up the state's economy, if it is biotechnology, green-technology, nanotechnology, high-technology, agriculture, the movie business, the music business, tourism -- all of those things are very strong.
As a matter of fact, I can tell you, I have seen over these last few weeks all kinds of great activities when it comes to solar. I have just visited, yesterday I visited five or six solar plants. And I always say that we can protect the environment and the economy at the same time, even though in the beginning there was suspicion amongst the business leaders that this would hurt businesses. But the fact is that it has really picked up in the green technology sector and now this business is booming.
Yesterday I visited a solar plant in Sacramento; it's called OptiSolar. They are now expanding their plant and they're hiring right now 1,000 more workers, just to show you that is an industry that is booming. And other industries also, biotechnology and so on. So I think that we have proven that you can protect the environment and protect the economy at the same time.
As a matter of fact, you should know that I just came from our Global Environmental Conference, a world environmental conference in Beverly Hills. This is where representatives from China and from India, from Mexico, Canada, from European nations, from all over the world, are meeting right now in order to move our agenda forward and to copy what we have done here in California with AB 32, where we made a commitment to roll back our greenhouse gases by 25 percent by the year 2020 and an additional 80 percent by the year 2050.
So there are all kinds of great actions. We in California are leading the way in all of those areas and this is why the United Nations came to us last year and they wanted us to talk at their opening session in New York, which I did, to inspire the other 190 countries to go in the same direction as we.
So all of this is really great news. So I just wanted to let you know that California is a very unique place and that studies have shown and researched it, because of our global warming laws we will create as much as 400,000 new jobs by the year 2020.
So this is all good news, so amongst the bad news that we see out there, there is also good news. We are stimulating and we are protecting our economy while improving our environment. That's the bottom line. And we are led by the ingenuity and the vision of our entrepreneurs and small business leaders and who I'm talking about is all of you.
So I want to just say thank you to all of you for the great contributions that you all have made to the state and I want to challenge all of you to tell us how we can partner with you. This is what it is all about. Let us know how we can partner with you. I'm asking you to be as creative about this, about working together with us, as you are with producing your products or providing the services that you provide.
Together we will show the world that America is still the place where the American Dream is still alive and especially here in California, the American Dream is still alive. And I know this firsthand, from when I came here 40 years ago. And I can tell you, since I've been here in this country we have gone through our ups and downs and we all have witnessed it. But no matter if we are down, or no matter if we are up, I can guarantee you it always is the greatest place in the world. There are no two ways about it.
Because we can look around right now-- there are still droves of people moving to California and moving to America from overseas. I don't see anyone in this downtime we have right now escaping from Florida with their rafting boats towards Cuba. (Laughter) I don't see anyone jumping over the wall to go to Mexico. I don't see anyone sneaking into Canada. I don't see anyone escaping to China. I don't see any of those things.
What I see is people coming in huge loads over to America to California. Why? Because this is, no matter how you put it, this is the best place in the world. If you're willing to work hard and if you're willing to live by the rules, you can make it in this country.
And this, I think, is what this conference is all about, because this conference is about entrepreneurship. And I think that we have here -- you know, this is one of the things that we want to organize here, is to launch the Global Entrepreneurship Week. And that's right, the Governor's Conference is not just a conference. We're going to start something that is worldwide.
And I think this is, of course, nothing new, because everything that I have always done is worldwide. Bodybuilding was worldwide, was a global thing. (Laugher) the Special Olympics, that I am the World Trainer and the National Trainer of the Special Olympics, that's global. The movies that I have made all were global. And, of course, our promotion and environmental issues and fighting global warming is global.
So we are adding here one more thing to this whole thing. It makes sense that we're doing it actually here in California. So much of what California does changes the world. Even though when you look at the globe we are a little spot on the globe. But the power of influence that California has on the rest of the world is staggering. It's an equivalent of a whole continent.
And I can tell you, with the eighth largest economy in the world, we are exporting to more than 200 foreign markets all over the globe and we are the number one exporters in the United States of computers and electronics. We are the number one state for venture capital investments, especially in nanotechnology and in clean technology, as I mentioned earlier.
We welcome all of the people from around the world that want to partner with us to match our entrepreneurial spirit. This is all about the future, it's all about the next generation and it's all about growing innovation.
So let's launch our Global Entrepreneurship Week right now. But of course I can't do it by myself, because I need my partner up here and that is Carl Schramm of Kaufman Foundation. Why don't you come up? Where is Carl? Come on out here. Let's give him a big hand. (Applause)
Go ahead, Carl. Let's pump up everything. Go ahead. Thank you very much. Let's give him a big hand again for the great work that he is doing. (Applause)
CARL SCHRAMM:
Thank you, Governor. It is absolutely a treat to be here and the treat is really to be in California, as the Governor said.
But the real treat for me is to be with the Governor. I can never forget your fantastic speech at the Republican Convention. This is not a partisan advertisement. This was a wonderful speech, I'm sure many of you remember it. The Governor recited much of what he just said here about his aspirations to come to America and what he found when he got here. In the case of Governor Schwarzenegger, what we really see here is someone who not only took the opportunity, like so many people who came before -- my own grandparents -- enlarged the opportunity, engaged in the wonderful American process of making it for others.
I'm told, Governor, when you get up in the morning you say, "What can I do to make life in California better for the folks who put me in office?" And I only wish that every politician felt that passion for public service, for real public service, because I think embedded in the Governor's experience is really a deep sense of giving back to America and making it better. So we're all really, really grateful for your service. (Applause)
You know, only in America, in the middle of the worst meltdown of our lives, would we go forward and talk about Global Entrepreneurship Week. I'm sure there are parts of the world, if they were smarter than we, they would stop and they would have abandoned it and they would stopped buying air tickets to 75 countries.
But in the United States we are, among other things, more optimistic than any other nation on earth. I just saw statistics the other day that 75 percent of kids in college in the United States have, as their goal, to own their own business and work for themselves and that means to start their own business. And by comparison, there's a new set of data from France that says that similarly situated kids in college, 75 percent of kids in French universities aspire to a job in the federal government.
Now, that is a huge difference. And one of the ways that difference comes through, apart from the sense of freedom and optimism -- differences in birth rates, by the way -- is also, most importantly, the difference in growth rates. In the United States over the last 25 years our economy has been growing at 3 percent GDP. Western Europe has been growing at 1 percent. It's really a marvel to me to read in the paper why it is we want Europe to admire us, okay? Because let me tell you about what -- I'm trained as an economist -- let me tell you what that growth does.
That growth in the United States, every year, pushes back poverty. That growth makes human welfare in the United States expand. That growth permits us to be the most innovative nation. It is the hope for people able to quit their job and to start something new. I'm talking about becoming entrepreneurs.
Now, entrepreneurs in the United States, we start, on a per capita basis, almost twice as many businesses per capita as any other country on Earth. In the United States this year we'll count about 600,000 new businesses. And one of the reasons I'm here with the Governor in California to kick this off is, of those 600,000, a hugely disproportionate number will be started in California. So, if Americans are more entrepreneurial, Californians are yet more entrepreneurial, so this is the place to come and talk about this.
At a risk of really looking crazy in the face of what's going on, let me ask you to dream along with me about a different America. Not an America that grows at 3 percent a year -- because, by the way, we have to do that. This is something that many politicians, Governor, do not understand. We have to do that. You know why? Because of our success. In the United States we have the world's growing -- the only growing level of productivity. We make more with fewer people year in and year out. We've been through six fantastic years of the highest rates of growth and productivity in American history. We make lots more with fewer people. And at the same time, through the wonders of immigration that the Governor described, we have many more people to give jobs to, so we have a growing labor market. And, of course, the optimism of our immigrants and our Americans who came before them produces a higher growth rate. We more than reproduce this economy and this society -- excuse me, our population -- because of growth. That's not happening in Western Europe. Not happening in China, by the way.
Those two factors together make us grow. We have to grow at 3 percent. So the dream I'm thinking about is imagine if we could grow this economy at 4 percent. Now, I must be crazy to be talking about this at this moment but I'm a real American, because Americans think about the future ahead. This is, as the Governor suggested, tough times. But in the end we know that this is a hiccup on the road to much better times and the continuing affection of our union and the economy that's underneath it.
Now, one other reason we're here in California is obviously your fantastic universities are part of why you do such growth here. You know, Governor, I'm sure you know, because you're as proud as you can be of this state and its people and its great history. Of the 20 great universities, the 20 greatest universities in the Shanghai Surveys, seven of them are here in your state. That's extraordinary. (Applause)
In all of Europe there are only two. In the United States, 16 of the 20 greatest universities in the world, the United States claims 16 of the 20. Want to know why we're so productive? That's why. We invest in education, we invest in the future and that investment is continuing to pay dividends in terms of more and more entrepreneurs.
Now, when we look out into the future, think along with me about the challenges that confront us right now. And there are three I would visit with you about today.
Obviously, energy. There are a lot of people, certainly in the political class, because I think the Governor has wrestled with these people in the past, who basically say the way we make a cleaner society is we stop growing. Essentially they don't say that but it's we can't do this, we can't do that. But fundamentally, they want to stop growth.
And the fact is, over the last 30 years we've continued to grow Gross Domestic Product, with each unit of growth we grow it cleaner. Now, we're nowhere near clean enough but we continue to get cleaner and a huge amount of that is because of our innovation. And as we look into the future, can't we imagine a 4 percent growth rate with half the amount of carbon fuel? Absolutely. But if we stop innovation and we stop thinking about this, that ain't going to happen.
The second thing: Think about health care. Back in Washington we're talking about nationalizing or socializing health care risks but we're going to do it with the formulation that was set out in 1965. Now, none of us wants medicine from 1965. We'd be crazy to, because we all benefit from the enormous innovations that have happened that totally revolutionized medicine since 1965. So we have to have, it seems to me, a revolution in innovation of how to pay for this and America has to think through the new ways of doing that.
And the third thing is we have to think about truly making America post-racial. One of the great things you see in America that the Governor referenced, is people come here to start their businesses. And America has got to be, someday -- and we're making huge strides against that -- a land where there are no differential dreams for black and white and Hispanic, for women and for people of different religious beliefs but the American Dream of becoming a billionaire, or seeing your children become millionaires and starting Microsoft, happens regardless of your situation, by where you were born, or what your beliefs are, or what your immigration status is.
This is what we can see. Now, we can get there -- (Applause) Thank you. We can get there so much faster if we can grow the economy faster.
I'm going to leave you with just one extraordinary fact. In the last 25 years we have wiped out about 20 to 25 percent of global poverty. That's never, ever been done in history. The reason is, we let capitalism flourish in China, in India. It was flourishing in Israel. It took over Ireland. It's in fact working in several African states, the freedom of people to engage in the marketplace, to make their own destiny. And increasingly, that freedom is translated into their head by starting their own high-growth business and making something of themselves as an entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurs do three things. They birth the new. They bring to us things as human beings we didn't even know we needed -- drugs, telephones, games and the recorded voice of Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Laughter) Who, Governor, I've got to tell you -- I have a daughter who is in college now but as a high school freshman with a smartass older brother, on a Friday night a kid picks her up, her mom is waiting in the car, they're going to go to the movies. It's so sweet, it's a nice date. And her smartass brother has wired our kitchen and says to this guy, "Hey Fred, my father has a question for you." And, of course, the question is, who is your daddy and where does he work?
But the technology to do that comes out of these entrepreneurs. Now, entrepreneurs do something else that's even more important than birthing the new. They create jobs. And that group of people who create these new companies every year create all the jobs -- all the jobs of new job creation are in firms in the United States that are less than five years old.
So when people set out to do this, of course they're pursuing expansion of their own human welfare. But along the way they take their neighbors along this trip making jobs, making wealth. That's the third thing they do.
Without entrepreneurs and the creation, the renewal -- what I like to call the renewal of democratic capitalism -- there's no new money and that's really what the crunch is in all of our states and in our businesses right now. We've relied more and more on government to figure out all of our problems. And the tension we face, that we're going to have to solve, is returning, folks, to the independent spirit of entrepreneurship; making your own destiny.
Mr. Kaufman, our great founder who died in 1993, who saw so clearly his own rise from a poor, desperate farm boy in the Depression in Missouri, to being able to die a billionaire and have taken -- 400 people became millionaires the day his company went public. And he saw his great American journey as being an entrepreneur. And when it came time for his foundation, he said, "This should be a very accessible journey." He said of himself, "I am a common person who has had an uncommon experience and everybody ought to have that." One of his great aphorisms was to us in the foundation, "Teach people how to make a job, not how to take a job."
That spirit is the spirit of growth, it's the spirit of expanding human dignity, it's the spirit of optimism, it is the spirit of entrepreneurship. And where else better in the whole world to kick off Global Entrepreneurship Week, than to be here in California with Governor Schwarzenegger, one of the world's great entrepreneurs and one of the great spirits of entrepreneurship, an American spirit right here in California?
Thank you so much and thank you, Governor. (Applause)
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