Well, the issues surrounding adding to the M4 and cutting traffic loads onto the current version of the M4 in Wales will be moot soon if this recession turns into a depression, which is now on the cards given very recent events in the USA.

Who am I: many things, but one of them is American small business co-owner – I’m a Welsh expat living near Washington, DC – I work in protecting innovation, and have drafted or prosecuted over 200 American patent applications, I mix with other small business owners every day, some of them are my clients, others I meet just outside in the ‘parking lot’ having a smoke (I chat, but don’t smoke).

The American small business sector is facing wipe-out, and you better believe this TRUTH: so is the EU/UK/Wales …

The US tax code is facing great change – small businesses (not based on number of employees, but based on the earnings paid to employees and the business owner) will have punitive taxes (8% on top of their regular tax obligation) if the small business doesn’t give full health care to their employees. The cut-off figure I heard was just $250,000 – if this is correct this will cause waves of despair among the American small business community – it is like small business owners are caught in an earthquake that won’t stop – it is causing a crisis of confidence among American small business owners regardless of political party affiliation. Small business owners are in shock.

This will hit just about every small business employing more than a handful of people. It is crazy – but I warned that the Feds will likely change the Federal Tax Code (to pay for promised spending plans) … and Elizabeth Edwards disagreed with me (wife of former Al Gore running mate, John Edwards); BBC Question Time special – I was called on twice – in the American election special broadcast directly from Washington, DC (actually from a studio inside the new Newseum – a 250,000-square-foot museum of news on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC).

I’ve written about this several times: hit the American small business sector – essentially frighten them out of existence and vola, American imports will drop creating a drop in EU/UK/Welsh exports – not just to the USA, but to other nations inside and outside the EU because they will lose their export market to the USA.

America is now teetering on the edge of economic disaster – if American small businesses take a huge tax hit – their job creating powers will not just turn to mush, they will lay off workers, cut their hours, cut salaries, drop contractors, and buy less, and their orders will in turn get hit – it’s going to be a chain reaction and the chain reaction will spread across to the EU/UK/WALES.