In and under the financial wagons

Investors had a big ol’ hootenanny at the end of last week. And when they finally woke up Monday, they had a collective hangover that looked a lot like the onset of clinical depression.

On Friday, they thought the cavalry had arrived to save them and all those sorry, overextended,  who-cares-make-hay hucksters who took over the banking and loan industries while the government winked and held the doors open. They saw charging horses and flashing weapons and cheered their own salvation with a whooping, hollering orgy of piling back into the wagons they’d just crawled under … only to realize when the dust cleared that it was merely George W. Custer in a cowboy hat, waving his fountain pen at the head of a tattered, debt-ridden regiment of federal spendthrifts.  

And even though they – and we – would like to believe that a couple of signatures can give this movie a happy ending, deep down we know that this is likely no summertime Hollywood western (“Buckaroo Bailout” ?), but a long, grim, anguishing Bergman flick the likes of “Autumn Sonata.”

When the economy tanks, entrepreneurs are often the ones sucked under with it, as a story in the small-business section of Monday’s New York Times points out. It figures: We’re smaller, with fewer clients or customers, fewer resources. Some are already facing reality, closing or selling their enterprises and going back to corporate life. It’s not a guarantee of safety, but at least the paychecks there are steadier and usually come with health insurance.

How do you know when it’s time to fold? When you’re out of money? Or when you’re out of hope? I’m a first-time entrepreneur and have no answer, but I can guess that the need to eat has a way of dissolving dreams quickly. Still, as long as the whole world doesn’t collapse, some of us will keep going, biding our time and winterizing our little companies so they’ll survive the coming harsh season somehow, while we take on second jobs.

Could the cavalry have a real leader in its ranks? Or will we have to hold out until one appears out of our own midst? I have no idea. But the real entrepreneurs among us may start raising chickens inside that circle of wagons.