BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON
A friend who runs a small business told me recently he’s going to make some really tough decisions next week to cut expenses. Those decisions are going to hurt good people.
I am familiar with people who have started new businesses that are now teetering on the brink of collapse.
Businesses, big and small, in the housing industry are hurting because of consumer angst about buying or selling.
I know a couple afraid of losing so much of their retirement savings that they won’t be able to slow down when they’d planned. I talk to young people every week who can’t find jobs and have nowhere to turn.
There are millions like them across America who don’t know where the next paycheck is coming from or how they will support their children or how they will avoid being dependent upon their children in old age. They are feeling the anxiety of not knowing, the fear of failure, that agony of defeat. They are real people with real families in real communities, struggling every day because of the uncertainty over the American economy. They are consumers who won’t spend and manufacturers who won’t produce and bankers who won’t lend because of doubt.