Here are a few interesting blogs and online articles published this week that relate to Rural Small Business, ending March 28, 2009:
If you’re looking for an update on how the recession’s going this week, you’ve got several resources to take a look at.
To start with you can take a look at an article online at Forbes Magazine called The Recovery Has Arrived.
Although the author finds many signs of a recovering economy, he thinks these signals are really due to us just adapting to the bad situation and making the best of it - not to anything improving:
“The news of course has been horrible for months, but the numbers aren’t showing further deterioration; that means the economy has absorbed the bad news and has largely adjusted.”
Apparently the industries benefitting from our current economic conditions include road construction, bridge building, and health care, whereas industries associated with luxury living - equine businesses, landscape turf management, and the recreational vehicle industry with motor boats and Winnebagos are having the worst time. Day Care operations are also struggling in communities where they are viewed by some customers as ‘optional’ and not lifestyle requirements.
Not surprisingly, pawnshops report great sales with some up 60% as desparate people hock whatever they need to sell, and shoe repair shops are up 40% and find increased interest in their craft among younger generation.
Is Regulating the Credit Card Industry Good or Bad for Small Business? Not surprisingly, small business owners have pretty strong feelings on the issue as they endure increases in transaction fees that are supposedly needed to protect them against fraudulent transactions, but then charged for those transactions nonetheless. Small businesses also report that their credit limits are being drastically reduced, interest rates increased for no apparent reason, and accounts suddenly closed.
A new 34-page report by the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council argues against government regulation of the credit card industry, claiming that it ultimately hurts small businesses, by making it harder for card issuers to stay competitive and offer the most flexible terms and best rates to businesses. The report can be downloaded here.
The rural economy has held strong over the last few months and appeared to be less affected than the overall national economy. However, in January apparently job losses in rural America and exurban America were more severe than city job loss for the first time.
Unemployment may be rising but apparently rural stock prices are too, at least according to the ‘Yonder 40 Stock Index’ a group of forty stocks selected to reflect the rural economy. Regardless of the economy’s ups and downs, it’s important that we keep looking on the bright side as we were reminded just last month:
“The rural economy may be as nasty as rusted wire,
but, hey, you can always hunt.”
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