As PME's na Europa da Grande Recessão

Comparemos o choradinho que costumamos ouvir da boca dos empresários e associações empresariais em Portugal, pedindo apoios, protecção e subsídios com o conteúdo do artigo "Humble but nimble" da revista The Economist:
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"In contrast to the doom and gloom coming from Europe’s biggest firms, many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are cautiously optimistic."
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"But a recent survey by the Federation of Small Business, which represents the smallest SMEs in Britain, found that 60% of businesses were performing as well as or better than last year."
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"Although SMEs are always more vulnerable to downturns than big firms, argues Ludo Van der Heyden, a professor at INSEAD, a French business school, they are also much better at managing through them. To start with, they are usually more efficient and flexible. They “tend not to make the kind of stupid responses that big companies make, such as cutting costs deeply and indiscriminately, so they recover faster”, he says. SMEs are much closer to their customers and there is often more trust between managers and workers, meaning greater labour flexibility."