Letters

I am a key manager for my firm, which performs roofing and sheet metal work. We are active members of NRCA, and I am a regular reader of Professional Roofing.

I am compelled to respond to "Readying for a recession," May issue, page 3. I feel this way because of the notion that anyone who is hardworking, intelligent and talented enough to run a successful small (or large) business would somehow be waiting for Ben Bernanke or any other talking head to inform us we are in a recession and then make contingency plans.

This is really a matter of knowing your audience. Successful business owners and managers aren't the kind of people who blindly react to others' opinions. They analyze these things on their own, deeply and intuitively, using many different sources to do so. I think the article's introductory comments were somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I acknowledge this, but I feel it will not ring true with your general audience. We may well be in a recession, and I think the advice that followed in the article was sound—sound even if we aren't in a recession.

Daniel Kelly R.D.
Herbert & Sons Co.
Nashville, Tenn.

Ambika Puniani Bailey, Professional Roofing's editor, responds: I agree. Successful businesspeople certainly can see warning signs of a recession and do not need a "talking head" to state what may already seem obvious. However, it would be overly simplistic to dismiss the Federal Reserve's clout when it formally acknowledges the country is in a recession. Once such an acknowledgement is made, as we all know, financial institutions really start paying attention, and things can begin to free fall from there. Lending tightens. Consumer purchasing decreases. Roof system installations and repairs are delayed. So though Kelly may not have been waiting for Bernanke to make his announcement, others certainly were.