Loss of Liquidity – The Bigger Guys Saturday, 28 February 2009
Posted by R Garfield in Bemused, Oversimplified Economics.Tags: Bowerbank, Democrats, economy, Jon Bowerbank, liquidity
1 comment so far
In speaking to the Scott County Democratic Party, Jon Bowerbank made mention of the loss of liquidity his firm – a successful firm, with no duns or dings on record – has experienced as a result of the economic downturn. What this loss meant to his firm was that resources needed for his firm to do its job had to be purchased immediately from cash on hand before he billed his clients. In the pre-liquidity freeze days, the company could purchase the materials for a future job and pay for those materials at the same time or after billing the clients.
That may not seem like a huge change, because either way the materials do, after all, have to be paid for. But the change actually has a significant impact: less liquidity means more resources are tied up in each job; which in turn may limit the number of jobs being able to be pursued at one time. Even if it doesn’t limit the number of jobs, it would limit flexibility in responding to changes foe specific jobs.
Instead of the jobs paying for themselves as they go forward, they are instead being paid for by the prior jobs. If a client is late paying, company resources stay tied up even past job closure dates – further restricting liquidity.
There’s a cycle here, and it’s not a pretty one: the less liquidity available, the more providers – banks and credit card companies – seem to be moving to limit remaining liquidity. Because they are limiting liquidity, you have less, and because you have less, they lower it even further.
If this is the way the economy deals with a successful, strong, ongoing small business, then the impact on individuals would be even greater.
Note: this is my oversimplified thought process based on what Mr. Bowerbank said; at no point do I quote him directly in writing this.
What I am is … Friday, 2 March 2007
Posted by R Garfield in Bemused, Political.add a comment
According to OnTheIssues.org, I am a “Moderate Liberal Populist.”
Jim Webb is considered a populist; I can go with that.
Apparently Hillary Clinton is considered a moderate liberal populist, as is Dennis Kunich (sp?).
Since my opinion on Ms. Clinton is decidely undecided, I don’t know how happy I am with this designation.
Ah, well … I’m happy enough with Wikipedia’s overview of ‘populist,’ as long as you leave the White Supremacists out of the equation.
(Hopefully, very far out…)
Ask Yahoo! team has confidence in Google Search Friday, 12 January 2007
Posted by R Garfield in Bemused, Technology.add a comment
We, like Yahoo!, have confidence that the Google search results will point us inthe right direction…
Democrats Hate Families Saturday, 16 December 2006
Posted by R Garfield in Bemused, Political.add a comment
At least, according to one Republican Congressman enamored of a 3-day work week they do. According to Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), forcing someone like himself to work 5 days a week, just like the the people who elected him do, demonstrates only one thing: “The Democrats could care less about families — that’s what this says.”
Kingston generally spends a grueling 3 days a week in Washington: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
3 days seems sufficient for rubber stamping someone else’s agenda. It doesn’t seem like nearly enough time to actually work on something. To be fair, Kingston and others like him can work outside the office. But do they? Make no mistake: being elected to Congress should mean you have a job, not a sinecure.
But then again, I haven’t worked under 40 hours a week in a long time. Maybe I should be taking time management lessons from the 103 day GOP congress.
