I had some discussions with two small businesses yesterday
The first company was a collection agency which said they never seen things so bad in 30 years in business. They are swamped with tons of new bad debts to collect. However, quality of debts to collect is very poor. By and large the debtors tell them your $2-5K indebtedness is small change to the larger problems they faced with their own receivables.
The second company was a fairly low tech global employment agency that has handful of NDX 100 hi tech and biotech clients. They were pretty very happy that 2-3 of them started to hire after a period of inactivity. I got the feeling their mindset is some business is better then no business.
I long as you can say the glass is still half full, market doesn't decline.
I like to to tell folks that call with something I don't want to listen to to leave a message at my email address......KISSMYASS.com ( I spell it and many don't even get the jest and just say OK.) LOL