20% of our orders were cancelled today. - because the credit market is closing. [View All]

[SmileyRose]

I work for a family business that deals with smaller shops of home accessories and with interior designers. In the last 3 days the fax machine has gone non-stop with cancellations. Since Monday, about 30% of our orders have been cancelled. About 20% of our orders today alone. Almost everyone who cancels is saying their credit lines are being reduced or cut off (in the case of marginal operations). In fact, our owner has a meeting with his bankers on Oct 6 to appeal the decision to reduce our lines of credit by about 40%. Ours is a healthy, up until now vibrant, growing business. Our profit margin is very good. But without that credit line, like our own customers we are out of business and 70 people will lose their jobs.

Like myself, the owner of this business is NOT behind that awful Bush plan to deal with this. He's angry that DC sat around on their hands for a decade watching this happen. Yesterday alone, more than 1 Trillion in wealth was lost on Wall Street. For most people, that is only on paper and eventually they'll get all their money plus. But the ramifications for privately owned businesses is huge. Upper middle class people, senior citizens living off their 401K's and a bunch of other people are pulling back. Credit is being cut off for even credit worthy businesses - forcing them to close their doors.

Something has to be done and fast. This is urgent. I very glad that horrid pile of horse lick they tried to pass failed miserably, and I don't know what the answer is. But if too many small to medium sized businesses fail because the investor with their hands on the money supply got nervous, the ripple effect will not be pretty.