Word: smalleness
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There are plenty of reasons to believe that small businesses aren't getting the credit they need. In the last three months of 2009, business lending at smaller banks, which tend to cater to smaller companies, was down at a 13% annual rate, according to the Federal Reserve. Not only are loans harder to come by, but they're also more expensive. That has the potential to slow down economic recovery, since firms that can't borrow often can't expand. Policymakers have responded with a number of programs to boost small-business lending, including an Obama Administration proposal...
Talk to business owners, though, and the picture is a lot more complicated. A poll conducted at the end of last year by the National Federation of Independent Business, a small-business trade group, found that companies were overwhelmingly more concerned about slow or declining sales than access to credit. A full 51% of businesses cited sales as their top concern, while only 8% cited the ability to borrow money. An additional 22% cited uncertainty as their biggest worry. In unstable times, even healthy companies are unlikely to want to take on debt. (See the top 10 bankruptcies...
...true that credit standards for business lending haven't tightened, as illustrated by the Federal Reserve's monthly loan-officer survey. And as Fed governor Elizabeth Duke pointed out in a speech on Feb. 26, those tougher standards could be having a disproportionate effect on small businesses. "Credit conditions may be particularly tight for small businesses because their finances are, in many instances, very closely intertwined with the personal finances of their owners," she said. For example, the owner of a small business who also owns a house may see a lower home price weigh down the creditworthiness...
...director of the Cambridge Winter Center for Financial Institutions Policy. In congressional testimony on March 2, he made the case that as the demand for loans from creditworthy borrowers picks back up, there might not be enough lending to go around. Part of that has to do with many small banks' capital constraints - money they would lend is still tied up in those real estate loans. Just as important, though, other places business owners have looked to for funding in recent years, like home-equity loans and credit lines from nonbank finance companies like CIT, aren't likely to bounce...
...dark alleyway not far from the bustle and glare of Tokyo's Shibuya district, smoke smelling of scorched starch spirals from a wood-burning stove set in the bed of a small truck. A sonorous ditty coming from a horn on the roof announces the arrival of something that seems oddly ancient in a city that often feels futuristic: the sweet-potato vendor...