Jobs at what price? Jackson Co. loan program faces possible $900,000 in losses

Smoky Mountain News reports:

Supporters of Jackson County’s revolving loan program describe the financial give-outs as a tool in the county’s economic toolbelt, a boost to deserving businesses that can’t receive critical, even lifesaving, financial help through banks.

But five defaults since 1993 when the loans started, out of a total of nine loans, raises serious questions about the program. …

Jackson has flat-out lost $525,000 since starting the program because of businesses folding. Another $420,000 is on the line, with the exact losses depending how much the county can recoup from selling off collateral. …

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About Jeff Fobes
As a long-time proponent of media for social change, my early activities included coordinating the creation of a small community FM radio station to serve a poor section of St. Louis, Mo. In the 1980s I served as the editor of the "futurist" newsletter of the U.S. Association for the Club of Rome, a professional/academic group with a global focus and a mandate to act locally. During that time, I was impressed by a journalism experiment in Mississippi, in which a newspaper reporter spent a year in a small town covering how global activities impacted local events (e.g., literacy programs in Asia drove up the price of pulpwood; soybean demand in China impacted local soybean prices). Taking a cue from the Mississippi journalism experiment, I offered to help the local Green Party in western North Carolina start its own newspaper, which published under the name Green Line. Eventually the local party turned Green Line over to me, giving Asheville-area readers an independent, locally focused news source that was driven by global concerns. Over the years the monthly grew, until it morphed into the weekly Mountain Xpress in 1994. I've been its publisher since the beginning. Mountain Xpress' mission is to promote grassroots democracy (of any political persuasion) by serving the area's most active, thoughtful readers. Consider Xpress as an experiment to see if such a media operation can promote a healthy, democratic and wise community. In addition to print, today's rapidly evolving Web technosphere offers a grand opportunity to see how an interactive global information network impacts a local community when the network includes a locally focused media outlet whose aim is promote thoughtful citizen activism. Follow me @fobes

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0 thoughts on “Jobs at what price? Jackson Co. loan program faces possible $900,000 in losses

    • bill smith

      “Government interference in the economy doesn’t work?”

      If one ignores the past 100 years of governance, of course.

    • sharpleycladd

      Yes, now that “government” has created a tourism and employment driver for Jackson County in the form of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, let’s all sit back and kvetch about how ineffective “government” is. Left to its own devices, “the market” would have clearcut those mountains decades ago, and there’d be no economy in Jackson County to argue about. Mr. Peck is plainly disingenuous about this, and many other things.

    • sharpleycladd

      Yes, now that “government” has created a tourism and employment driver for Jackson County in the form of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, let’s all sit back and kvetch about how ineffective “government” is. Left to its own devices, “the market” would have clearcut those mountains decades ago, and there’d be no economy in Jackson County to argue about. Mr. Peck is plainly disingenuous about this, and many other things.

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