Welcome to the newest weekly recurring article at GGM: Scotch and Cigars! Scotch and Cigars is a weekly segment answering reader questions about everything business-related. Look for it every Wednesday afternoon here at GGM.

If you have questions that you’d like answered by our panel of experts, simply submit it to the comments section below.

Your questions answered after the break!

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The Oracle of Omaha (none other than Mr. Buffett himself) is in the news once again — this time announcing that Goldman Sachs (he’s their largest shareholder) will spend up to $500 million dollars to help small business around the country in the areas of management education, consultation, and capital injections.

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AP — The Oracle of Omaha, better known as Warren Buffett, joined Bill Gates for a speech yesterday infront of a horde of anxious students at Columbia University (Buffett’s alma mater).

Although admitting that we are (or were?) undergoing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Buffett and Gates agreed that the worst times are now behind us.

“The bottom has come in stocks.” Buffett reported confidently, with Gates quickly adding that “capitalism in the United States is alive and well.”

While it may not feel like “capitalism is alive and well” to many of you small-business owners out there, this could be the ray of sunshine — the light at the end of the tunnel, if you will — that many of us have been pining for since well over a year ago.

The bottom line? If you want to believe Buffett (who, ostensibly, wouldn’t stick his neck out and say something like that unless he was ready to back it up) all you need to do is plug it out a little longer!

As usual…

… Go out there and get it done!

Have you ever been sitting at your desk, looking at your most recent Debit Card statement from your bank, and realized that the $2 pen you bought at Office Depot was what caused your bank to charge you a $30 overdraft fee? No matter how well you control your cash flow, it’s happened to most of us.

And what’s more frustrating about it? The fact that the pen just went from costing $2 to costing $32, or the fact that, when questioned, your bank will tell you that charging an overdraft fee (instead of simply declining the charge) is a “privilige” that they extend to their customers.

Well, as of next summer, instances like that might be a thing of the past, thanks in large part to your friendly neighborhood Federal Reserve.

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The Marketing Plan: everyone will tell you that you absolutely have to have one. Few of the people who say that, however, are able to tell you what exactly a marketing plan consists of. Fear not, you titans of industry — Garraty Group is here to bring you the bacon!

Your marketing plan helps set the course for your small business, and you should refer to it at least monthly to make sure you’re still on track. More on creating your marketing plan after the break!

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This article from the New York Times Small Business section may be of interest to some of you out there, especially if you’ve used (or plan to ever use) an “Angel Investor”.

Just in case you’re unfamiliar, “Angel Investor” is a moniker for an individual (or group) who helps inject cash capital into a business during the startup period or during a significant growth period. In exchange for the capital injection, Angel Investors usually receive some share of equity ownership and/or convertible debt of some type.

What you should take away from the article: While it may be much, much harder to find an active Angel Investor right now, do know that they’re still out there. At the moment, they’re shying away from financing start-ups and waiting until the company has already proven that it can hold traction in the market.

So, if you’ve been thinking about finding an Angel Investor for your company, don’t be discouraged. Just show them a rock-solid balance sheet, a track history of great traffic, and an excellent management team.