it would limit for their own accounts. jm mpmorg j. there are people -- look at what happened with jpmorgan. they it did something dumb. lost money, didn't collapse, fired the people responsible. this is the market at work. this is how it's supposed to happen. why does the government need to play a role? >> to some extent that's true, but i take some credit for it. it's because government took control. if jpmorgan lost more than $2 billion, you would have seen more panic in the economy. you would have seen much more conce concern. what we did in the legislation e we passed and through other

things was to require the financial institutions to be much better capitalized. so one of the things that's a result of the government telling them, you better have more capital, then you would have had otherwise, that helped give people reassurance. >> this past week, barney frank spoke about the $2 billion loss by jpmorgan chase as well as the state of the u.s. and world economies. the dodd-frank law and gay marriage. watch his comments online at the c-span video library. business owners from across the nation are in washington for the small business administration's three-day conference focusing on the importance of american entrepreneurialism. during an hour-long panel discussion, sba administrator karen mills, committed to giving owners the tools to succeed during tough economic times and stressed the crucial role small businesses play in building a strong economy. >> i am delighted to be here, as you know, as i said earlier at

breakfast, national small business week is maybe my favorite part of the year. i want to start out, though, by, again, for those who missed breakfast, i know you were all there, by giving my thanks and asking you to join me to give a warm set of thanks to my colleague, my partner in this, our deputy administrator marie johns. thank you. [ applause ] >> if you think i travel a lot to your regions, marie is out every single week and really doing the work of this agency. this is a ground game, we call it. we have, i think, really enjoyed meeting all of you out in your regions and areas and businesses. and today it's even more of a pleasure to have you here with

us. this is my chance to talk to you about everything that has been going on in the world of small business. and i think the first place to start is that we're honoring businesses today who really embody the entrepreneurial spirit of america. we have this ability in this country to create cutting-edge products, to create services on main street that are new, that are innovative, that are special, that customers want. and there are companies here that really exemplify this. i have to start with my personal favorite, even though i love all of them. the reason is because i had it for breakfast. tobani is a great yogurt. how many of you have tried it? it's just delicious.

i'm a particular fan of strawberry and blueberry, but they are all good. this is a company that took an old kraft yogurt plant in new york and made it a dominant player in the greek yogurt business. tem ploys now more than 1200 workers. so that's what we're talking about with job creation. and actually, you can innovate in yogurt. this is a high-tech business, in fact. and now another favorite of mine in boise, idaho. reckloos, a motorcycle clutch that's sold to professional racers and weekend enthusiasts around the globe. i would like to be a weekend enthusiast, but maybe not so much. how about an entrepreneur like sarah callahan from montana who saw that the companies weren't

making the right clothing for women who were doing ranch work and farm work and other heavy labor. so she started her own line. who knows what it's called? red ants pants. and it is heavy duty work attire for women. so i could go on all day. i met a few more of you last night that i wanted to add to this. they said i only had a limited amount of time. so let me just say this to all of you. each and every one of you is a testament to the enduring drive of america's entrepreneurs and to the power of small business to change lives and to transform communities. at the spa, and all across this administration, we're focused on our job, which is to make sure

that you have the tools that you need to grow and to create jobs. people ask me what the sba does, and i like to say that we are the agency that helps you, the small businesses, create two out of every three of the net new jobs in this country. you all probably know the facts, but half the people who work in this country, half of the people, own or work for a small business. that's half the jobs. and as i just said, the entrepreneurs in this country are really the life blood of our economy. so what do we do at the sba to support your business? we focus on what we call the three cs and a "d." that's not the grades. actually it's one of the first grades my son got in college,

but that was awhile ago. but it's capital, counselling, contracting, and disaster relief. i know that many of you have worked with us in one of these areas, but the reason i'm taking this moment to talk to all of you and those who are listening is that you might only be getting one part of our services and you're missing out on the rest of the c's and the d's. so we want to make sure that you know about them. access to capital. how many of you have had an sba loan? well, i'm very pleased to tell you that 2011 was a record year for the sba. we did $30 billion in loan guarantees through our great partners, banking institution, and cdcs and others. $30 billion, that's more money into the hands of small businesses through sba loan guarantees than ever before in

the history of this agency. [ applause ] and each one of these loans is a story like one of yours. i was out in michigan, which you know is this terribly hard hit, and i met tom johnson who was a chrysler employee for 15 years. and he had a dream though. he wanted to run his own business. so he looked around and he decided he wanted to become a culvers franchise see. but he didn't have experience. so with our help he was able to get an sba loan. he's now skpufl now looking for a second location. access to capital, providing that opportunity to grow and

start a business is a critical piece of what we but we know we can be more streamlined. and that's one of the things that our whole team around capital access has been working on lead by jeanne hew lit. is she here? a program that we have for small businesses who maybe want to win a big order, but they need to have enough cash and resources on hand to finance the inventory. and we had a program, but it was too cumbersome so we reengineered the program. we implemented it last fall. i'm happy to say we have a 220% increase in the usage of this program, which provides working capital financing. something that you all asked us

for since the time i arrived here. so cap lines. if you haven't looked into that, do. and we not only do our regular 504 program. last year was a record year for our small business investment company program. $2.6 billion went from those small business investment compa companies into the hands of small business, and we had record amounts that we put out in newly-licensed sbcs. so i want to thank them for that. we just honored the sbic winner, and i was with him last week in nashville. it's amazing how many small businesses and entrepreneurs are getting their starts with this sbic program. and you probably know some of our brand name successesh