An op-ed from today’s LA Times reminds us that small business people throughout the country are hurting:
A block from my Manhattan apartment, on a still largely mom-and-pop, relatively low-slung stretch of Broadway, two spanking new apartment towers sprouted just as the good times were ending. A massive ground-floor window on one of them displays a message advertising retail space in white letters against a bright red background: “Locate yourself at the center of the fastest expanding portion of the affluent Upper West Side.”
Successive windows assure potential renters that this retail space (10,586 square feet available! 110 feet of frontage! 30-foot ceilings! Multiple configurations possible!) is conveniently located only “steps from the 96th Street subway station, servicing 11 million riders annually.”
Bailout money flooding Wall Street banks isn’t helping, even 75 blocks uptown.
I am reminded of Larry Summers warning us not to be impatient, the recovery will come. Relief funds will free up credit, but will it be in time to save our independent small businesses? Especially the retailers who can’t withstand long downturns and unyielding landlords.
Maybe it’s time to consider relief that directly reduces costs for small business? Would that be in keeping with the Reinvestment part of the ARRA?
Paul
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