We're Main Street, not Wall Street
Business First of Buffalo
Western New York has a history of riding the financial middle ground. When America’s financial sector was booming, our local economy wasn’t. When Wall Street crashed last week, our panic levels here hit nowhere near the high tensions felt on the opposite side of our state.
It’s been both a bane and a boon to living here: When times are hot, our temperature is lukewarm. When things turn frigid, we’re simply cool.
That’s what history suggests, at least.
And that’s what the experts say, too. “Everybody will be negatively impacted, but our local economy will not be intensely impacted,” says Susan McCartney, director of the Small Business Development Center at Buffalo State College.
We wonder, though, if the impact will be more intense than it has been in the past.
Western New York companies have been branching outside our area, doing business elsewhere and bringing in business from bigger places. Marketing firms here work with clients in New York City, Los Angeles and beyond. So do printers, manufacturers, financial types and so on.
Once we lived in a virtual bubble, cycling money through our own region. But Western New York has expanded. We’ve globalized – perhaps not as much as other places, but more than in the past.
So if – and this remains an if, because the economy is seesawing like a hyper little kid – there is pain to be felt, there’s a good chance we’ll feel a deeper sting than in the past. Like it or not, there are no more isolated pockets. All moneythings are interlocked.
McCartney has a good point when she says, “Buying locally has never been more important. You can create your own micro-economy where, if we’re buying and selling, and not spending too much on transportation, we become less affected by rising energy costs and can serve each other.”
There will indeed be value in investing in our area, especially if finances will be rockier elsewhere. But the reality remains: We’re bigger than we used to be, and we rely more on outside business. As a rule, that’s good. But for the here and now, it also means this: We’re not invincible to economic woes.
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