ben s bernanke : welcoming remarks speech by mr ben s bernanke, chairman of the board of governors of the federal reserve system, at the conference on “ small business and entrepreneurship during an economic recovery ”, federal reserve board, washington dc, 9 november 2011. * * * good morning. welcome to the federal reserve board and today ’ s conference, “ small business and entrepreneurship during an economic recovery. ” let me begin by thanking the federal reserve bank of atlanta and the ewing marion kauffman foundation, both of which have cooperated closely with the board of governors in organizing this event. this meeting is indeed an eclectic one, bringing together small business owners, lenders, technical assistance providers, government officials, and members of the academic community to explore the challenges faced by today ’ s entrepreneurs and to identify promising approaches to addressing their needs. events such as this one are particularly valuable because they allow us to draw on a broad range of experiences and evidence. we are keenly interested in hearing your insights and look forward to sharing results from the federal reserve ’ s continued small business outreach and research efforts. some of you may have attended a forum here last year that focused on credit access for small businesses. 1 we hope to advance that discussion today by exploring not only the financing needs of creditworthy small businesses, but also the role these firms could play in creating jobs during these difficult economic times. we will also discuss the unique challenges faced by women - and minority - owned firms. we hope to be as concrete and practical as possible ; for example, several conference papers assess the extent to which training, technical assistance, and other resources are available to support these and other small firms. the ultimate goal of this meeting is to learn more about how best to support both small businesses and their communities – to understand what works and what doesn ’ t. importance of small businesses to the economy it ’ s no secret that the past few years have been very difficult for many small firms. they have faced weak sales, diminished asset values, elevated uncertainty, and tight credit market conditions. many small business owners have had to lay off employees or defer hiring. and many potential entrepreneurs with plans to start new businesses have put those plans on hold. the role of small businesses and entrepreneurship in job creation will be discussed in our first panel today. as many of you are aware, small businesses have played an important role in fueling past economic recoveries. we need to think carefully about how, in the current

this range of views, commenters also suggested a range of potential board actions – from no action to prohibiting trading or ownership of commodities associated with catastrophic risk, strengthening prudential safeguards ( such as reducing caps on the amount of permitted activities ), strengthening risk - management practices, enhancing public disclosure, requiring additional capital, increasing regulatory coordination, and developing risk - management best practices. the federal reserve has been reviewing the comments and considering what steps would be appropriate to address the risks posed by physical commodities activities. the board has discretion with regard to the complementary activities approved under section 4 ( k ). we are also considering whether additional restrictions are appropriate on bis central bankers ’ speeches merchant banking investments to ensure that the investments are truly passive. moreover, we are exploring measures such as additional capital requirements, enhanced riskmanagement requirements, and additional data collection and reporting requirements on physical commodities activities to help ensure that such activities do not pose undue risks to the safety and soundness of financial holding companies and their subsidiary depository institutions, or to financial stability. conclusion our review of the commodity - related activities of the firms we supervise is ongoing. we are assessing the potential risk of physical commodities activities to the safety and soundness of the financial holding companies engaged in these activities. in doing so, we are focusing on the risk to safety and soundness presented by specific activities and on whether those risks can be appropriately and adequately mitigated. in addition, we are conducting a careful and thorough assessment of the costs and benefits of financial holding company engagement in these activities. our work includes a complete assessment of the comments we received in response to the anpr. we expect to issue a formal notice of public rulemaking regarding these matters in the first quarter of next year. thank you for your attention. i would be pleased to answer any questions you might have. bis central bankers ’ speeches