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How Indian Americans Came to Run Half of All U.S. Motels

nationalgeographic.com

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Re: How Indian Americans Came to Run Half of All U.S. Motels

#151

Post by kelukelugames »

justboxing wrote: post #66

The story totally checks out. I moved from Boston to San Francisco in 2006, did a cross country drive. Back then we only had flip phone, so I would use my laptop and The Microsoft Streets software with a GPS. Every day, around 3 PM, I would pull in into the parking lot and locate a Motel 30 or 40 miles ahead using the GPS and Streets software, and call and book a room. 8 out of 11 motels I stayed in were owned and ru…

Do you know what's funny? I see this comment in every thread about Indian Americans and motels. It's almost copypasta.

Re: How Indian Americans Came to Run Half of All U.S. Motels

#152

Post by jessaustin »

justaguyhere wrote: post #42
dv_dt wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has been a long term decline of community banks, which might be the more American equivalent of this kind of lending. https://www.stlouisfed.org/Publications/Central-Banker/Fall-... The Small Business Administration also helps with loan guarantees. So the support is sort of there, but takes a different form, and maybe one could say the impersonal nature of it is both a strength and a weakness in comparison. Num…

I suspect this has to do with the difficulty of more and more Americans in attaining any savings from their wages All the more important to support one another. Although, if everyone in a person's trust circle is more or less in the same boat, then tough luck :( With no meaningful support from gov/banks etc, people banding together to help each other might be an alternative. Some non profits are working in this space…

Americans are forced by law and convention into living a very specific kind of life. Lots of things they do and "own" require substantial investment of money and time. A regular (not minimum) wage is calibrated to just barely take care of all that, and modern marketing specializes in "educating" our tastes so that we can really tell the difference between e.g. $18k and $28k automobiles, to keep us on that treadmill even when we have plenty.

Although on average they are poorer, residents of India have a great deal more freedom with respect to the costs of everyday life. No matter how basic their housing, transport, clothing, food, education, safety, etc. may be, they can always trade down if their situation or preference changes. Many lives lived happily in India would be largely illegal in USA.

Re: How Indian Americans Came to Run Half of All U.S. Motels

#153

Post by sumedh »

pm90 wrote: post #130
justboxing wrote: post #66

The story totally checks out. I moved from Boston to San Francisco in 2006, did a cross country drive. Back then we only had flip phone, so I would use my laptop and The Microsoft Streets software with a GPS. Every day, around 3 PM, I would pull in into the parking lot and locate a Motel 30 or 40 miles ahead using the GPS and Streets software, and call and book a room. 8 out of 11 motels I stayed in were owned and ru…

The Gujaratis are known for being very enterprising folks. It is culturally respected in the community to have your own business, whether it is a small corner shop or the biggest corporation. India’s biggest private corporations (Reliance Industries) was started by a Gujju. Gandhi and the current PM also hail from this state.

> The Gujaratis are known for being very enterprising folks.

The downside is that some of the biggest and famous crooks are from the same community as well.

Re: How Indian Americans Came to Run Half of All U.S. Motels

#154

Post by reaperducer »

lolsal wrote: post #60
reaperducer wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, having family members work for you for free is legal. My accountant once encouraged me to try to get my family members involved in a business I ran just for that reason.

I think the question of age comes into play though.

Possibly. But there are an awful lot of very young family members working on commercial farms.

That’s why rural states give drivers licenses to kids as young as 14 — so they can drive a tractor between fields.

Re: How Indian Americans Came to Run Half of All U.S. Motels

#157

Post by jessaustin »

Spooky23 wrote: post #23
bytematic wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could this apply, or have applied, to farms? I bet that would have a lot of interesting social effects.

No. Hotels work because they require capital and low overhead — they also have a limited scope of competition. farming is a business in the middle of a consolidation wave. Small farmers are being starved out and losing access to capital as small banks go away. I don’t thing that the gujarati model works for fringe agriculture. The big players in the agriculture business are global now, and a farmer in Ohio or New Yor…

The model doesn't work in commodity ag, but no model really works for that in the long term. It always takes more capital. Farms have been failing (or "consolidating", if you prefer) for 150 years. The bogeyman didn't shutter those banks. The nonviability of buying a bigger combine and renting more land every couple of years shuttered those banks. Such a bank could have stayed open if at least once every few years its county was the only one in the Great Plains to get rain. That would have been a lucky bank...

I'm not sure what will disrupt commodity ag, but it sucks, and the sooner it transforms into something else the better. The most successful farmers I know now are raising goats for halal butchers. I'm going to start crossing my cattle with "wagyu" bulls. Don't sell commodities.

Re: How Indian Americans Came to Run Half of All U.S. Motels

#158

Post by seppin »

stephengillie wrote: post #3

This model has led to success for other immigrant groups in other industries. > Many followed his advice. “They would give each other handshake loans—no collateral, no payment schedule, just pay when you can,” Doshi explains. Once a family purchased a motel, they would live there, and the family members would do all the tasks needed to run it, from cleaning rooms to checking in guests. That helped keep costs down, an…

> The "killer app" here appears to be a lack of resources beyond established relationships. Because of this, whole families were willing to spend their time doing work that most Americans feel is not worth their time.

Most restaurants in Europe are run by immigrant families, they couldn't turn a profit otherwise.

Re: How Indian Americans Came to Run Half of All U.S. Motels

#159

Post by ummonk »

skookumchuck wrote: post #44
sidlls wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not (just) that most Americans feel these jobs aren't worth their time. There is a very strong individualist streak in American culture and a very strong taboo against lending friends or family members money for any reason. There are plenty of American families who have relations who could easily help bootstrap a profitable small business in the way described here. It just doesn't happen that way very often. Ins…

> Instead the typical means to wealth is inheritance or luck of birth providing access to investment capital The typical means to wealth is spending below one's means and investing the rest. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/style/fire-financial-inde... And there's the book "The Millionaire Next Door" which shows that 85% of American millionaires are self-made, usually through spending below one's means and investin…

Are those actual early millionaires or just retirees with retirement savings?

Re: How Indian Americans Came to Run Half of All U.S. Motels

#160

Post by AdamM12 »

ofcrpls wrote: post #100
AdamM12 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worked in restaurant industry. Latino workers had a pool of money that the all put into and if I remember correctly they rotated who the paid it out to for big purchases like this. I think they mainly used it for like cars and homes.

These are called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chit_fund . Pretty common in countries where access to the formal banking sector, especially for women who are home-makers, is complicated.

Awesome didn't know what the formal name was.
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