>> business news from the pital region. this is "washington business report" with abc7 national correspondent rebecca cooper. >> thank you for joining us for a look at business and nance in t washington region. new numbers s on thehe jobs front has many peoplee nervous, and popolitics has made ththe war t the up. it is been a week of women versus women sound bes. i am revved up on this topic. stay tuned for that.

first, we want to focus o on a life or death issue for small business. access t to capital. in the report found evidence for special concerns for african american-owned small businesses in the washington region. when the rececession hit black businesses lost morere lending and had a harder time staying afloat.. brian is with us to discuss the story. joining us, nicholalas stuart the founder of new world development grgroup. capital became scarcrce. thank you for joiningng us. bryant let's start with you. you found some very troubng numbers. let me throw out a coupl. the good news wafrom 2003o

2008 five times more loans were approved to b black-owned businesses. by 2011, post-recession, that was down 87% in terms ofending andapital. what else was troubling? >> some of the interting things w were tting at what happed and what was behind these numbe no one reay knew until i started diggi into it. a lot of these out-of-town lenders started making a lot of small loans tt went overwhelelmingly to african american-owned b businses. the programs that they have used have gone away or cancelled which disproportionely hithe african american community. >> realally od work on your porting. you also found that somof

the lenders were selling their loans to others which happens a lot but they were doing it th these smsmall businessoans where they were going to turn a p profit whetr there was a defefault or not. >> some of these programs were structured in a way that is supposed t to make it easy to give an lot of capita to mpans ththat may be otherwise would d not ququalify. the incentives were set up so the leers could still make money becse they could charge hier fees the coat to the third party that they sold them to. >> right. >> you also foundnd they y were not loaning g busisses enough mononey. they would l launch tm less than needed so they were almost set up to fail. >> yes. a business owner wouldld come e in

andd s say i needed $250,000. the companiewould morer less this regard that anlook at their credit sco, the value of theirouse, and give them oftentimes 80% less of what they needed in order to suced. of course, they could not execute onheir binesplan. >> nicholas stuart let's bring you in on this. you had some difficult times getting access to capital. you went tohe bks, it turned wn b10 diffeferent banks, and you had a $5 million contract on the table. he s said the banks were going to have to step up thonorhe contract. none of e 10 banks that you went to would give you u a loan d you had size down the contractct. >> it was very troublingng. the criteria that was u used was

very backward-looking and therere was s very littlee consideration to the revenues, profits and margins and what w in front of us. the ctrac had counterparties that were federal government-related or d.c. government-related. that was completely left aside more so checking boxoxes methodology. >> as you all pointedut in the story, you had no lawsuits or in any major debt hanging over you. it looked like a good proposition. you u had this contract on the table. you got a small loaoan but at a higher rate. >> it was the size of t loan

sutantlly smaller than what we really need to fulfill the contract so we had to sisize dow our opopportunity d we left lot of money on the table. we were able to secure som financing. it i expensive capital. e ultimately did not use the relalationship. i can see how a a lot of businesses would go out of business without that financing but at the same time e as oth avenues availilablei would not know what an appropriate strategy is. >> do youou feel like race played a fact in your inability t get a a loan? >> it is hard to say in our situation. i do not know definitively. in some of the research that bryan and h team ununcovered demonstrates how maybe a lot of capita supy went to certain

counities. i really just notdo not know. hispanic businesses are getting more loans than african american businesses even though they are outnumbered. did you find ththis was a a race- based. >> its so hard to kw. i thinkhat most experts agree that it is sort of systemic discrimination. it is not outright racism but there are biases when a person has sitting across from a business owner that are ingrained in to help our society works. it is rt an unconscious bias that is likely impacting of these decisionsre made but lot of it has to d do with how the criteria is laid out. >> that is a terrific pnt.

i got as fafar as a chielending officer. we have great creredits course, a bagroundnd in public accounting. these t things should all m measure up. in this situation, we'd like loaning money to peoe who do not need the money. he articulateded if have a bad loan in my portfolio might investors are going to ush. >> so glad you shown the spotlilight on this issue. we are goioing to talk to a bank xt wk to take look at

>> she was born in the district, her mom was a secretary in the reagan white house, and her dad was a washington post reporteter. she hasade her name in the fashion industry. sissy yat thanks for joining us.. its noeasy gettingng noticed in the wororld o high en jewey. what gavave you the and this is to take on a business that can be intimidating? >> i think it evolved naturally. in my case, it was pulling at my hair and kicking at t me because i always led history growing up and the smithsonian.

i i wanted to go stair at the hope diamond. it is a happppy place. five years ago -- i always made jelry for friends and family. five years agoi got laid off from my job. i had 50 necklaces in my closet. did a private showing for two hours and everything sold. >> your sister is no stranger to hollywywood. she is marriried to georgege stephanopoulos. your success traranscends the busineness. how you get t attention of people to create so much buzz? >> personal approach is so essential. i am pasassionate about what i do and it shows.

social medea helps. i also hadad some earrinings on oprah. that was wonderful. so word of mououth. again, a ery personal approach. >> another difficulty as a small-business is hohow you convince it is still accessible for every woman who wants to buy jewewelry but things it is not something sheet should buyuy for yourself? >> again socia networkrking. i am l learning on-the-job. facebook twitter. i just grded tweeting. people really do take notice. >> you have cvinced women to splurge on themsmselves. >> absolutely.

i think jewelry is like candy in a way. mymy drive is t keep it rereasonably priced and a beautiful, and the class. i think it shows. >>we always like to ask smamall businesses what mistakes you made or what you learned the hard way. >> one of the mistatakes is there are no busine h hours and more especiallyly being an entrepreneur. i starte working4/7. i have three childldren and a husband, but it was like day and night. my husband was stringing beads at night. >> putting thehe husband to work. >> hiring more people are really try to mapp out your time because before you k know itit, you are working dayay and night.. other t things are sacficed.d.

>> it has become a rea success so thankou for your sacrifice. >> thank you so much. >> state to. you might want to buckle up for today's roundtable. it could be a bumpy [ male announcer ] if you believe the mayan calendar on december 21st polar shifts will reverse the earth's gravitational pull and hurtle us all into space. which would render retirement planning unnecessary. but say the sun rises on december 22nd and you still need to retire. td ameritrade's investment consultants can help you build a plan that fits your life. we'll even throw in up to $600 when you open a new account or roll over an old 401(k). so who's in control now mayans? [ male announcer ] are you paying more and more for cable and enjoying it less and less? stop payaying for second best. upgrade to verizon fios and get tv, internet and phone

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>> this weeeek, t busininess news headlines athould have been about jobs. we will talk about that but we plan to take on the workplace issues.

the mommy wars -- a battle that tries to pit wowomen the workplace against women w who are stay at home motothers who bebetter to represent the mal view thahan peter morici economics professor from the university of maland. and jennifer nynycz-conner from the "washington business journanal." peter, say something about js. >> the econo is slowing again. the20,000 last month was no fluke. wewe aretarting to see it rising unemployment claims again. whether that bes into the prpresidtial campaign is yet to be seen. a lot of it depends on the bed numbers. >> it deserves a full round

table of its own. jennifer, i have been more troubled abo women fighting women this week. water we doing? hila rosen said d in making the point that ann romney should never be e the economic advdviser i in the campaign. ny people said the context -- that did not stop the war from igniting. >> you and i both know this is one of those hot-button issues that however you approach it, you can get yourself into trouble. she had a very poor choice of words which touched on a nerve where many women worki or staying at home are obviously feeling. >> i defended mitt romney when i

was at the event when he said "i like to re people." why did the white hououse so quickly throw her under the boss? >> i think there is a fear of that. both on the right and the left, it h beemy experience that people think w women should have choioices and this and that. onlyly if they make t choices that they agree with. the and d the lead too evangelicals think they should go back to work. then there are others who think stay at home moms are notaking the right choices. is exemplary of se o of thee tolerance that we have even among some political cfers that are very damaging. lo at how they grab word that mr. mitt romney has taken out of context and hammered him.

>> in every rosen is a grown upp and we have known hefor years the sheik was not criticizing women who make the choice to stay home. why are we fightineach other? >> i do not think we are fighting each other as mucuch as the 24-hour news cycle is stigating us to fight much. >> shouldn't we be going after some of the policies that make it hard on both kinds of moths? we do not ha enough of a net to help moms inin general. >> mrs. romney would like to talk about t those things and hilary rososen said she es notot have t the right. she is wrong. she is one of those democrats on the extreme who basically not only the use her opponents as wrong but as evil.

it is an indictment of the m media for haviving such an extreme personality because it makes great theater. eveventually they get themselves into trouble. >> they are not evil. fox news channel saidthis was taken out of context. is she t the evil or are we trying to fight a fight that the men want to stay out of? >> of course she is t evil. working moms, whether working at home or out of the home, it is a hard job. all it takes is i do not agagree with yr choice. >> y as an ecomist do we not have more things that ar disposable in this countryry? if women stayed at home, it iss an exhausting. i finally came back to work so i

could go to the batathroom by myself. if women stay home, they cacannot get a break why cannot we of for m mor help e way that other womomen in otother countries -- >> did not take me out of context. when y you have e half of the population of women going to work, it drives uphe cost of things like housing anduts more parental pressure on famies with ly one income. women have less resources because of the fact thahalf of the women go t work, drive up the price of housing. >> a la wanted when i was home was a place wre i could go to watch my kids and take a nap. why don't more businesses catered to moms? >> there is a business -- seriously? i should get done 8.

>> lite red ryder will take your kids to school every now and then. >> if you are an investor, call me becse i have all of these ideas. >> b brainstorming for helping out moms. where do we go from here? >> we just bury the issue. you will get tired talking about it. men get tired of listening to it. not to women's concerns but about this argument. there are real issues in the campaign >> stop fighting each other and start fighting that kind of thinking. >> what kind of thinking? >> let's bring it to employers and say help the peopl -- >> we have to go. >> i am not saying >> we have to go

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>> our number of the weeeek is 01. that is where you will find it a washington radioio s station. number one in the country when it comeses to revenues. that report from "washington business journal." 12% increase compared to 2010 putting em on top of the top

10. that is all for us this week. thank you to joining us.

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