Doing Micro Business in Chicago
What a couple of weeks we’ve had with the numbers world! Congress spent weeks of fruitless posturing before arriving at an agreement to raise the debt ceiling, volatility in the markets both up and down over the last month, European stability fears prompting a huge stock market decline last week . . . and the average man on the street is ultimately the one to pay the price for all the machinations that seem to be beyond our control.
I hope that there is no truth to the rumored fear that the economy is going into a “double dip” recession. I feel like we are in a bad B movie where all the camera shots are dim and shadowy – how can we get out of here . . .
As someone with NO firm grasp on economics it seems to me like the biggest issue is that the capital that has been generated over the past three years isn’t hitting the marketplace. Banks aren’t loaning the money that they have (and they DO have money), corporations aren’t returning their earnings to wages or expansion projects (probably to maintain their stockholders affections), and people just aren’t shopping! It is a wonderful thing that savings are on the rise, but until consumers feel confident that they won’t need to live off their savings in the near future they aren’t spending money. All of this doom and gloom talk isn’t helping matters either.
Eat in a restaurant sometime this week! Buy a present for someone you love. Pick up something at a neighborhood store. Every little bit helps and ultimately we are all going to have to push through the fear and start doing more business in our own lives to keep the wheels moving. We WILL be fine.
