Let s look at what s actually happening out there. private companies, 27 million of them are growing right now. that s a fact over the last 12 months. so, it s kind of missed in the media picture. we need to know what s happening. according to our data, it s very strong. do you feel like that s going to continue into 2012? it s a great question. over the last 200 years we found for every four years of expansion, we have a down year, right? once those tides start to turn, they usually keep going. we expect a good year, we really do. brian hecht, you have started and sold three businesses. it s in the tech base, which is different than a lot of the other businesses and booming right now. what do you feel as an entrepreneur. 2011 was a messy year, marked by a lot of indecision. a lot of entrepreneurs are
Entrepreneurial community? william dunkelberg is the chief economist for the nfib. brian hamilton is the co-founder and ceo of save work a company that developed software for financial professionals and small businesses. brian hecht is a serial new media entrepreneur and phil town is an investment adviser and best-selling author. great to see all of you. all right, phil, you have been here every year, i think, doing this with us at the end of the year, so i want to start with you, also, because we cited your survey. optimism up three months in a row. in your crystal ball, do you expect this to continue next year? well, i think it will continue. as we look at the basics in the economy, we see that, you know, either we re just getting used to bad news and so we re going to try to ignore it and move forward, or some good things are happening. and i think the latter is the case. so we did see an improvement in the optimism index. and in particular, inside of the index, the ten components