Asymptosis

A while back I pointed out that in 2007, only 9 percent of U.S. privately-held businesses cited a shortage of investment money as a constraint on their growth. In response to a rather maniacal comment on that post, I went looking to see what things are like today.

Answer: about the same. The National Federation of Independent Businesses gives us this up-to-the-minute snapshot. (Update: yes that is a mislabeling–should be February 2009. It’s from the March 2009 report and the other tables in that report are properly labeled. Update 2: the March report seems to have disappeared from the site; I’ve updated the link to point to the April report, which tells the same story.)

Just as in the 2007 survey (from another outfit) cited in the previous post, financing and interest rates come in dead last (selected by only 3% of businesses–same as a year ago) among small businesspeople’s concerns. Their problems, which should be obvious to anyone with eyes and a mind, are on the demand side.

Related posts:

1. Taxing Businesses, Encouraging Investment: Running the Numbers
2. “No significant deregulation of financial institutions occurred in the last 30 years”
3. We Need to Spur Business Investment. Yeah, Right.
4. Teddy Roosevelt on “the true conservative”
5. Am I Channelling David Stockman, or Is He Channelling Me?