U.S. Small Business Is In Great Shape | 30 comments (30 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: U.S. Small Business Is In Great Shape (4.00 / 2)

The other strong-hold of small businesses is construction related contracting and tradesmen. They also have taken a huge hit. It is traditional that during recessions dominant capital, the big boys, consolidate their position by buying or putting out of business smaller competition. During booms they expand their breadth of operation. During recessions or depressions they consolidate their depth.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Wed Feb 23rd, 2011 at 11:56:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: U.S. Small Business Is In Great Shape (none / 1)

The small, construction contractor will not be coming back. We have decided to destroy the publicly backed secondary market for mortgages, which made it possible for common people to own homes and frankly made the U.S. working class into part of the middle class, and so we are destroying the market for single family residences, which was what made small contractors possible. We are abandoning an ownership society and exchanging it for an owned society.

by rifek on Thu Feb 24th, 2011 at 12:09:28 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: U.S. Small Business Is In Great Shape (none / 0)

A point of order: What is destroying the American middle class is that the income it used to use to buy stuff - including homes - isn't there any more. Give it back a reasonable income, and it will be able to obtain financing, with or without a secondary market for mortgages. That's the nice thing about having a central bank: It removes the loanable funds constraint, making the credit market a completely demand-side beast.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Feb 24th, 2011 at 02:19:01 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: U.S. Small Business Is In Great Shape (none / 0)

Worse, that income was turned into un-payable debt. Until that is resolved, nothing will recover.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Thu Feb 24th, 2011 at 09:43:35 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: U.S. Small Business Is In Great Shape (none / 1)

Quite, that debt has to be restructured in the old fashioned way, through bankruptcy, to remove the private debt service burden which is bogging down the economy.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Sun Feb 27th, 2011 at 12:52:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: U.S. Small Business Is In Great Shape (none / 0)

We've dismantled the infrastructure for providing a reasonable income to a middle class of any size.

by rifek on Sat Feb 26th, 2011 at 11:20:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Yes, remantling that is part of the ... (none / 1)

... demand side solution. There is, however, ample policy opportunities to do so in the actions that Big Oil has forbidden over the past three decades.

If a fight is necessary, better it be a simple fight, and Big Oil versus The Survival of the Middle Class is both accurate in depth and sufficiently simplifiable.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Sun Feb 27th, 2011 at 12:51:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]

U.S. Small Business Is In Great Shape | 30 comments (30 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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