There has been a death in my neighborhood. I speak of another independent, small business killed by an influx of chain retailers. In this case a grocery store, which opened its doors in 1875, has expired.
No more will I stop there to buy meat, talk to the butcher about the various merits of New Zealand and American lamb. No more will I ask the manager to see if he can get yellow corn rather than the white corn favored in Northern Virginia.
One could shrug off another small business going to the wall as a sign of life in the age of chain retailing, if it were not for the relentless rhetoric from politicians about the need for and virtue of small business. John McCain lauds it. Barack Obama genuflects to it. And all 535 members of Congress get weepy about it.
Their argument for small business is that it creates jobs. To me, the job creation is a given. My argument is that entrepreneurism and small business define who we are as a nation and how satisfied millions of Americans are with their lives.
Yet small business is under relentless attack, mostly lacking the basic tools to defend itself. Credit is an important ingredient, but it can be overrated. Startup small businesses have never been able to look to banks for seed money. Banks do not do that kind of lending, which is why so many small businesses are started with credit cards, family loans or out of the earnings of a working spouse.
In my mind, after credit, habitat is the great burden of small business. Read full story.
