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Bill Dunkelberg, chief economist, National Federation of Independent Business, Washington
Last year's balance sheets won't look so good, so next year people will find it harder to get credit or their credit worthiness will depreciate and the loan pipeline will decrease. The percentage of companies planning capital projects has dropped to historic lows. It's just not a good time to be borrowing money, and we won't be seeing much change in the current situation in credit availability or lending criteria. It will be tough to try and get a loan with big banks like Bank of America (BAC)—they made a lot of mistakes and are short on capital. Small community banks are the way to go. We let the big banks get so big that they are too big to manage and that means too big to fail.
I am the chairman of the board of a little bank and we still make loans. In fact, our loans grew 30% this year. We don't have the kind of stupid stuff Wall Street invented—we are in the business of savings and lending. [Of course,] business is tougher now, and we have a record number of [small businesses] whose own sales are in decline and that will impact their balance sheets.
Mitch Jacob, CEO, alternative lender On Deck Capital, New York
It is going to be extremely challenging. Historically, small business owners have been in a credit crisis since 1776, and the events here in the U.S. and around the world are taking that difficult funding environment to new heights.
Even prior to the credit crisis, access to capital from banks for small businesses was extremely limited. Most relied on alternative sources to meet their capital needs. We have always woefully undercapitalized this critical segment and now it's even worse.
Posted via email from Jay’s posterous
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