Discover: Small Business Confidence Sinking

The people running the Discover Small Business Watch had to look a ways down in order to see October numbers relating to small business owners’ outlook.  It seems that the overall index dropped by a bit, and answers to more specific survey questions weren’t encouraging, either.

An official statement observes, "The index slipped 3.2 points in October to 71.4, the lowest confidence rating since the Watch was established in August 2006."  Meanwhile, 64 percent of respondents rated the economy as poor (only 57 percent felt this way in September).

So why is everybody grumpy?  For one thing, it seems that many small business owners didn’t like the way in which $700 billion was spent.  Discover found that 57 percent of small business owners disagreed with the government’s bailout plan.

Furthermore, it looks like small business owners don’t have much confidence that either McCain or Obama is on their side.  "Small business owners continue to believe their issues are not being addressed in the presidential election," according to Discover.  "Only 19 percent think that this election season has created a forum for them to heard by the candidates."

So hold tight, everybody, and we’ll see what happens next month.  A positive footnote: the Dow’s up 155 points right now.