We have all heard of the impact of the current world recession on employment and standards of living, but has anyone actually looked at some of the indirect effects of the economic downturn?
One of the problems with having a banking system which refuses to lend to smaller businesses is that sooner or later those businesses who cannot secure funds from other sources, and who have exhausted all other sources of cash will have to pack up and close shop. Thousands of small businesses are going broke and leaving more zombie corporate conglomerates to service their industry.
Mere Decades ago people had a strong relationship with their local businesses. They had a favorite local grocer, local electronics store, diner, and so on; all of them small in size with a real owner. Today this is seldom found, unless you visit one of the beautiful small towns around the country. Today, we buy from corporations who claim to be friendly and who claim to have “great customer service”, but of course this is far from the truth. Just do a search for banking horror stories on Youtube – customers are fed up with made up fees, huge hikes in interest, shutting off of credit lines, or search for how United Airlines broke this guy’s guitar and then lost his luggage on the next flight. To make matters worse they refused to pay for the guitar – but you expect that. Imagine what would happen if they weren’t “customer oriented” or didn’t have a phony “we love our customers” logo everywhere.
In today’s world, you buy fast food from teenagers who make your food on an assembly line, you get a haircut from a guy you don’t really want to talk to but who won’t stop talking to you, who gives you a generic haircut. No dear friend, today you wait on the phone for 2 hours so you can answer question to a computer who hears no better than your great grandmother, the one who still gives you a quarter and tells you to buy something nice.
I guess the point of this hopeless rant is: support your small businesses. They are backbone of the economy and the road to prosperity, freedom, and healthy communities. They will give you better customer service and they’ll be sincere about it. That is something we strongly believe in. We love our business but we also love the feedback we get and how happy people are with good service and a real person to deal with.
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