[AlexdeLarge]

HopeNchange

Small Business Trends Suggest No Recovery On Horizon
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/01/small-business-trends-suggest-no.html

For small business owners, 2009 ended with a thud. The Optimism Index fell and finished just seven points ahead of March which was the second lowest reading in 35 years of survey history, even though the economy posted positive growth in the second half of the year.

Interest rates are at historically low levels, inflation virtually non-existent and real hourly earnings have held up well. ...

So why hasn’t owner optimism soared like it usually does at the end of a recession, especially one that cut so deeply into our economic fabric? The answer is “hope and change.” There is little hope and the change that is being delivered is far from encouraging.

Washington is offering nothing but higher taxes and fines and fees and more regulation. Congress is passing bills with thousands of pages of hidden bombs that will go off as the legislation is passed and implemented. Federal spending has soared amazingly, yet been ineffective except at pushing the federal deficit to incomprehensible heights, promising to double our national debt in just a few years. The interest burden this will place on average Americans is astounding. Uncertainty is the enemy of economic growth and investment, and Washington, D.C., the usual source of uncertainty, is delivering plenty of it. Confidence in our political leadership has tanked. ....

[Daniel_Plainview]

Washington is offering nothing but higher taxes and fines and fees and more regulation. Congress is passing bills with thousands of pages of hidden bombs that will go off as the legislation is passed and implemented. Federal spending has soared amazingly, yet been ineffective except at pushing the federal deficit to incomprehensible heights, promising to double our national debt in just a few years. The interest burden this will place on average Americans is astounding. Uncertainty is the enemy of economic growth and investment, and Washington, D.C., the usual source of uncertainty, is delivering plenty of it. Confidence in our political leadership has tanked. ....

BINGO ! ! !

[PrestonSturges]

Aside from voting for corporate-owned phony libertarians, what do you suggest?

[aldente]

Pat Robertson is a wish to be "Adolf".

[gnm]

Aside from voting for corporate-owned phony libertarians, what do you suggest?

Voting for real non-corporate owned Libertarians?

-G

[aldente]

[gnm]

I like your idea better C.....

-G

[PrestonSturges]

Aside from voting for corporate-owned phony libertarians, what do you suggest?

Voting for real non-corporate owned Libertarians?
-G

Will he be riding a unicorn?

[Ludi]

I thought the put-upon business owners were going to leave the US if Obama was elected? How can there be any left to tax and regulate?

[AlexdeLarge]

I thought the put-upon business owners were going to leave the US if Obama was elected? How can there be any left to tax and regulate?

Those who can are leaving, shutting their doors, staying home and/or moving to friendlier climes. Those who can't are laying off workers, cutting back, shutting their doors and/or going broke.

It's the change you voted for; the change you believed in ludi....congrats! Got anymore of those links you always posted to "The Ones" website about the land of HopeNchange? We all could use a few laughs!

[PrestonSturges]

Unfortunately, without Bush's TARP bailout, small businesses would have gone under and many did anyway.

The grassroots populism falls into two camps - the Fox zombies and Beck heads that are merely tools of the same corporations already running things, and the seemingly Nihilist gold bugs that want an immediate hard crash so they can get a good return on their stockpiles of MREs.

[Novus]

Unfortunately, without Bush's TARP bailout, small businesses would have gone under and many did anyway.

BULL!

TARP was not aimed at small business but the huge "Too big to Fail" mega banks. Not one red cent of TARP went to help the small businessman. In fact it was the the small banks and small lending institutions that small business rely on that were allowed to go belly up. Goldman Sachs turned record losses into record profits and bonuses thanks to TARP.

The country was robbed in quiet coup on Wall St. I am astounded people still don't get this.

[PrestonSturges]

Unfortunately, without Bush's TARP bailout, small businesses would have gone under and many did anyway.

BULL!

TARP was not aimed at small business but the huge "Too big to Fail" mega banks. Not one red cent of TARP went to help the small businessman. In fact it was the the small banks and small lending institutions that small business rely on that were allowed to go belly up. Goldman Sachs turned record losses into record profits and bonuses thanks to TARP.

The country was robbed in quiet coup on Wall St. I am astounded people still don't get this.

How quickly they forget. Small businesses could not get credit to order materials, pay for gas, or pay employees.

In the months before obama took office, we were all hoarding beans and hitting the ATM every couple days because we weren't sure whether the banks or food supply would collapse first because of the credit crush, even after Bush gave them TARP.

But we've all forgotten that, and now we'll rush to put the GOP back in office because we'll believe it when they say they'll get tough on the banks.

As a species, we may survive, but we are way way too stupid to survive as a nation.

[Cloud9]

I suppose one way to find out who benefited from the bailout would be to look at who is paying out bonuses at the end of 2009. The small business owners I know are hanging on by their finger nails. On the other hand, Wall Street tends to be doing very well. The argument that the rest of us can prosper off the crumbs falling from Goldman Sachs’s table is wearing very thin.

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/co ... 594184.htm

http://www.lawbizblog.com/2009/12/artic ... -impacted/

[efarmer]

A couple years back two snappy dressers in suits rolled out of a mega SUV and came in
my shop door. They gave me the full court press about joining their organization that lobbied
my state government to represent collective small businesses. I simply asked them how much
money they applied to campaign funds and they told me a few of the big political names and
how much each one got. I pointed out that they were not delivering enough wampum to buy
significant government love compared to the big corporate hitters who owned these same
people, but that they personally did seem to be living well on the scheme.

They left and have never come back.

If I would ever be tempted to go to a bordello, I will make sure I don't show up all
snazzy and cologned up and ask the madame what I can get for a dollar for all
my little friends around town. Being a small business guy, I could simply start my
own bawdy house and run it by hand until the economy improves enough to
consider staffing, if I were so inclined, and of course I could comp myself to keep
my spirits up.