Forecast of Sentiment of Small Business Owners

The current forecast that I am showing right now is a forecast that split up the most important problems between small business owners stretching from 1996 to 2009. Now, while I understand that we are currently in 2010 and the economy has been on a bit of slow growth since June 2009, the situation stands in that we can't be absolutely sure as to what will happen until then. The reason why I am posting this is because it's important as a reflective image of our existing economic paradigms.

What I mean when I use the word 'paradigm' is in the context of the dominant social belief in our society - are we more centrist, leftist, right-winged, etc.? Understanding our paradigm dictates who will win, who won't, etc. However, the issue that paradigm measurement has is that it's difficult to measure where people stand: they may lie, or change, or be unsure as to what they're planning on doing or what their positions are. As a result, measuring paradigms can be a bit tricky.

When data such as this, however, comes along, I make it my personal mission to splash this data all over where I can find it, because it is important prevalent. I won't tirade for too long, because it is also evident that drolling about economics is as exciting as looking at two rabid hedgehogs play swing-ball.

The chart above is a measurement of the percentage of small business owners that display what their main worries are and what are prescient problems in their industry. Now, before I begin, the source was from the Economist, and there was no mention of exactly the size, area, or the definition of 'small'. As such, I apologise for the lack of supplied data, and any issues that may arise on the readers' end in regards to your opinion riding on those definitions know that you have my empathy.

This survey shows that poor sales are still the dominant feature, with the idea of taxes running fairly consistent. Now, this is interesting because a good chunk of the Republican platform in the United States is to cut taxes so that business owners may have more money. This chart, otherwise, deals with basic supply of purchasing power by customers to small businesses. In other words, we need more people to buy, says small business owners.

This is important because now that fundamentally becomes a counter-point for the Republican economic platform - the idea of giving people money to spend may be fallacious because won't spend - that's important, because if people don't spend, then we don't have a good enough purchasing power parity.

Now this is funny, actually, because of this not-spending-but-saving sentiment among Americans there is more money in the banks. With more money in the banks, that means that the bank has more consideration (the means upon which they may loan and carry in value of gold), thereby raising their profits as they can lend out more. With more lending, more money is being made, so costs are better offset.

In fact, this recent plight against small businesses is interesting because group Citibank's recent rejuvenation (turning a profit in the May quarter of 2009), there's a rise in points in the DOW Jones. For Citibank to have made more money means that they'd need to have more consideration, meaning they'd need more money to use to loan out.

With more money to loan out, more is made in principal fees and interest, meaning deficits are cut more and more, meaning they may more money. More money equals higher points, more confidence in the banks, more investments. Everybody wins, even so far as to say that the recession is over, despite initial sentiment believing that Citibank may not survive.

Now, in all fairness, banks are still clawing their way back up, Citibank included, but I find it interesting how as small businesses lose sales, banks get more money and voila! recession instantly over.

Of course, I understand that there are multiple events going on that time - Madoff's plead to guilt and the restructuring of Chrysler and General Motors in addition to the abdication of GM's Chief Executive Officer. I'm not saying these events are unimportant, but I am saying that it is fairly coincidental, if it is a coincidence at all that cutting the sales of small businesses took the US out of its (legally) recession.

Frankly, this doesn't help jobs, which Americans still sorely need.