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Senate passes bill to provide benefits to individuals and small businesses

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Re: Senate passes bill to provide benefits to individuals and small businesses

#61
Regarding the small business loans, I think a better incentive would be at the state level, to comp prorated property taxes on all commercial property for the next few months, but only if the owners also comp rent for all renters on the property during this time.

You may think that the landlords would be making more money by not accepting the comp, since the rent will have some premium on top of property tax, but the ones with some foresight may realize that they will lose more money if their tenants go out of business and they have vacancy periods, possibly only to find new renters at a lower price in the event of recession.

Re: Senate passes bill to provide benefits to individuals and small businesses

#62

[flagged]

Why do you think there is no "social net" in the US? The US directs over a trillion dollars per year to poverty programs. Certainly it could be better organized, but the starting point for any conversation about this shouldn't be that there is no safety net.

The public discourse on this is based on a complete misunderstanding of what is going on. In particular the official "poverty" statistics exclude huge portions of assistance. So much so that many programs could double or triple their benefits and not make a dent in the "poverty" level for the simple fact that metric doesn't measure what everyone thinks it measures.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2018-10-14-nice-to-...

Re: Senate passes bill to provide benefits to individuals and small businesses

#63

Loans, even cheap ones, are a very shity way of "helping" small businesses and individuals. For example, a local restaurant where I live, will have to shut down for good in the next few days as they won't be able to afford their lease. If they get a loan for the lease, they'll be on the hook for that money with no guarantee of being able to pay it back and with way too much uncertainty in terms of when they'll be abl…

> Loans, even cheap ones, are a very shity way of "helping" small businesses Really disagree on this point. The primary value of a business is their assets, brands and expertise. All of those things will be just as valuable after the pandemic as they were before. Assets don't just disappear because they're not used. This is just as true for small businesses as it is for big business. Any business that was profitable…

Your tone suggests that "small business owners" suggest that they're all better off financially than the average salaried employee. Well, as a former restaurant owner, I can tell you that in good times, the margins across the industry is 5% if you're doing above average. That means, a $2MM restaurant (which isn't an easy feat, even in NYC) will only net the owner $100K.

Loans were, and always will be, a false promise. There's too many variables in the equation that make it not appealing.

TLDR; Small business owners don't have "wealth." Get that out of your head and be sympathetic to what small business owners that you frequent have to deal with.

Re: Senate passes bill to provide benefits to individuals and small businesses

#64
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Loans, even cheap ones, are a very shity way of "helping" small businesses Really disagree on this point. The primary value of a business is their assets, brands and expertise. All of those things will be just as valuable after the pandemic as they were before. Assets don't just disappear because they're not used. This is just as true for small businesses as it is for big business. Any business that was profitable…

You seem to be conflating some Bezos-level corp. owner with a poor guy cooking Raman down the street.

I suppose both are cannibals from a certain point of view

Re: Senate passes bill to provide benefits to individuals and small businesses

#65
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Loans, even cheap ones, are a very shity way of "helping" small businesses Really disagree on this point. The primary value of a business is their assets, brands and expertise. All of those things will be just as valuable after the pandemic as they were before. Assets don't just disappear because they're not used. This is just as true for small businesses as it is for big business. Any business that was profitable…

> The primary value of a business is their assets, brands and expertise. All of those things will be just as valuable after the pandemic as they were before. this doesn't seem true to me. at least the brand loses value over the pandemic, and there's likely complications from cashflow that eat into other assets.

Why does the brand lose value? My favorite restaurant is still a place where I want to eat when this is all over. My favorite brand of toothpaste is still the one I want to buy. How does the brand lose value?

Re: Senate passes bill to provide benefits to individuals and small businesses

#66

Historically, how long does it take to go to hyperinflation when past governments started doing this? I need to know.

make sure you buy your gold bullion and store it in your new zealand end of the world bunker

Re: Senate passes bill to provide benefits to individuals and small businesses

#67
post #53

Historically, how long does it take to go to hyperinflation when past governments started doing this? I need to know.

If GDP contracts 10% this year - a real possibility - there is literally zero chance of inflation. The real enemy is deflation.

Can you explain that?

Re: Senate passes bill to provide benefits to individuals and small businesses

#69
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount matters. I'll take a trillion dollar loan at %0 in a heartbeat and quickly become a millionaire via conservative investments. A 20k loan at %0 doesn't do much for me though.

What would you invest in right now to make money?

Bonds, perhaps corporate ones(yielding 3+% currently), are always a decent choice. Its trivial to make money with 0% loans.

Re: Senate passes bill to provide benefits to individuals and small businesses

#70
post #62

[flagged]

Why do you think there is no "social net" in the US? The US directs over a trillion dollars per year to poverty programs. Certainly it could be better organized, but the starting point for any conversation about this shouldn't be that there is no safety net. The public discourse on this is based on a complete misunderstanding of what is going on. In particular the official "poverty" statistics exclude huge portions o…

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