Turn the Page to Chapter 11
By Marc Tracy
Two separate posts--one from Henry Blodget at OPEN Forum (published by our sponsor, American Express OPEN) and one from John Tozzi at The New Entrepreneur--tackle the same phenomenon: the rise in small business bankruptcies. The graph at the bottom of this post (from the OPEN Forum post--the shading indicates where the recession began) shows a clear, and sharp, rise in bankruptcies over the past year. Last month was not the high; May was, and they have fallen off slightly since then. Still, Tozzi warns, it's not uncommon for firms to hold off on filing in the second half of the year, in the hopes of the fourth quarter saving them--so January could well bring new carnage.
Blodget points to the credit crunch and lower consumer spending as the main culprits in this unfortunate trend. And he predicts a continued high rate of filings even as the economy as a whole begins to recover. So Merry Christmas, and Happy Easter too.

October 28, 2009 12:57 PM
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