The current economic upset is proving bad enough for small business, but even the best of times often turn out to be no picnic either. Paradoxically enough, business failures are as much associated with a booming economy as with one that is slumping, and frequently high interest rates have nothing to do with the problem at all.
This year's casualty totals threaten to rise no higher than the peaks of the ten-year period between 1957 and 1967, which began with a mild recession under Dwight Eisenhower, encompassed John F. Kennedy's famous expansionary tax cut in 1964, and ended just as...