From Bad Times to Worse for Small Business

According to this blog I site regularly:

- Business bankruptcies have tripled since the first quarter of 2006
- Nearly 29,000 companies filed for bankruptcy in the first half of 2008
- Given an estimate that as few as 1/3 of "deaths" go through bankruptcy, it is estimated that up to 90,000 businesses failed during the first half of 2008.

"The vast majority of these failed companies are among the nation's 23 million small businesses, with fewer than 100 employees.", according to recent analysis from McClatchy.

These failures are a primary force driving unemployment higher. The article makes the point that the BLS is under counting failures while over counting new business establishments. Regardless, the "death" statistics are very scary, especially for the small business community, and reinforce the need to hunker down, save some capital, and cut remaining fat to keep the business going.