Also: WSJ Journalistic Fraud Exposed As "Blaming Picky Workers For High Unemployment Meme" Is Blasted To Smithereens
It should be obvious to anyone who's ever worked anywhere in the private sector anytime in their life: The most important thing for a small business is CUSTOMERS, aka DEMAND for whatever it is that your company sells. If people don't have money to spend, there is no demand. Getting just a tad more complicated, if they do have money, but they're scared they won't have it for long, so they hold onto it rather than spending it, there is no demand. If everyone holds onto their money because times are tight, this only makes things tighter. Economists call this the "paradox of thrift." What makes sense for the invidiual spells ruin if everyone does it at once.
Small business owners know this, as do their employees in a truly small business. The paper I work for is a perfect example. We have fewer pages now than we did before the Wall Street collapse. That's because all our advertisers have fewer customers--except maybe a few who have to work harder to avoid that fate. It's a vicious cycle: less demand for one sort of goods or services means less demand for others as well. That's why you need government spending to fill the gap, to make up for the lack of private demand, and to help spur private spending to pick up again.
Small businessmen know this. Their employees know this, heck, even GOP senators and congressmembers know this when they're back home passing out the giant checks, taking credit for pumping money into the local economy. But back in DC there's this big charade, pretending that all these elementary facts of life simply aren't true.
Well, now, via Paul Krugman, comes the following splendiferous chart, from Catherine Rampell at the Times Economix blog, showing 24 years of data on what small business owners have to say about the biggest problems they face. And as you can see: (A) when recessions happen (early 1990s, early 2000s, the last two years) the percentage saying "poor sales" (aka "lack of demand") goes up significantly, (B) right now the percentage saying "poor sales" (aka "lack of demand") is far and away at its highest level ever, and (C) no other problem is particularly high by normal standards:
This should not come as a surprise to anyone living in the real world, which of course explains why it's totally unbelievable to everyone in Versailles. It's another one of those "No WMDs in Iraq" moments.
The Weekly Standard ran a cover story this week called, "In Denial: The Meltdown of the Climate Campaign." Despite the cute play on words about who is denying what, the article got it all wrong. Climate change legislation is not dead--not as long as publications like this keep putting it on its cover.
Nice to know that when it's people, instead of banks, whose health is at risk, the federal government becomes inordinately worried about how much things cost. I've positively run out of sarcasm on the subject.
Though our current system also has a significant cost, it's just that the public pays it, as Chris wrote last month. And when they're not paying it in dollars, it's coming out of their health, their time and their independence.
"I gathered a group of young farmers and farm workers together a few months ago and guess what the number one issue was: HEALTHCARE. One mishap on the farm and you are in debt for LIFE. Not to mention pre-existing conditions ... forget finding any insurance company to cover you then.
"Why do so many farmers work two jobs? Answer: health care. Why can't we get more people to farm? Answer: who wants to work two jobs their whole life!"
The rural employment situation poses other problems.
In an age of corporate consolidation and dispropotionate power, Dennis Kucinich is the candidate most willing to face the problems threatenting the American dream head on by leveling the economy and supporting growth and stabalization in the small business sector. As Kucinich notes:
The challenge before us today is whether we can maintain a government of the people, by the people and for the people, or whether we will timidly accept the economic, social, and political consequences of a government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations.
(I originally posted this at Daily Kos earlier in the week, and got a decent response. I'm interested to see if it generates any thoughts here. Thanks!)
John Edwards is pretty good when it comes to the credit card industry. To be sure, he has made an issue out of it, while I can't find much anything about the issue on either Hillary Clinton's or Barack Obama's websites. I'll give credit where it's due: He's willing to take on issues that matter to real Americans.
But then the flip-side of that is that I'm addressing this diary to him, and not to the others. They should listen too. But I think Edwards is the only one who might, and maybe is the one who can make the best political use as well.
