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More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

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Re: More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

#61
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're an expert at designing systems as complicated as the entire economy, maybe a lot of people.

because they're doing such a good job?

They don't have to be doing a perfect job for you to be able to do a worse one...

Re: More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

#62

When the next pandemic hits, I doubt any government will dare to attempt a closure. The costs for these closures have been high in terms of economic pain. In addition, the protests, though they are justified due to the oppression the community has experienced, are likely undoing a lot of the effects of social distancing by putting a lot of people together in close proximity for hours. So in the end, we will have expe…

Utah is very clearly having a significant infection surge, and the state just recommended to itself that we pretty much drop the rest of the few restrictions we ever had in the first place.

https://coronavirus-dashboard.utah.gov/#incidence-epicurve

https://senate.utah.gov/majority-newsroom/2020/6/2/public-he...

Re: More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

#63
post #37

> Bed Bath & Beyond, Famous Footwear, H&M, and the Gap, AMC and Regal movie theaters, and 24 Hour Fitness gyms have all missed payments, jeopardizing the stability of their property management companies and municipal governments that rely on property taxes, The Post's Heather Long reported. All roads lead to the Federal Reserve. Stores defaulting on rent payments starves landlords for cash. Landlords unable to servic…

The US by definition can't default on its own debt. It's literally impossible because all debt is in USD. If the US gets into the situation where it doesn't have enough money to pay off its interest payments, the only one solution is to print more money to pay off the debt. This will lead to #2 in your list, which is actually just #1.

When the US starts printing money, it will lead to a lot of destruction of assets because China will also start selling their UST causing interest rates to jump. I can see a weird situation where inflation starts to jump but also interest rates jumping as well.

Re: More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

#64
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but comrade, paying rent itself is inherently unfair. It allows for profit off merely having bought something sooner than another had a chance to. If the rent stops now, why should the rent start back up?

I guess you're being sarcastic, but what value is being provided to society by having landlords rent houses out to people who would rather buy them?

People who would rather buy houses than rent should feel free to do so. No landlord is forcing someone to rent their property.

It is often the case that renting is quite a bit cheaper and always the case that it's more flexible to do so, which is why a lot of people choose to rent instead of buying. Society benefits when people who wish to rent housing have housing available for lease.

Re: More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

#65
post #52

I am afraid we are in a real Wile E Coyote moment here. You know, where he's suspended in air for a few seconds before he goes crashing to the ground? Our crash may come in the fall when UI payments stop and the rent floats become unsustainable. About the time the second wave hits. https://66.media.tumblr.com/bbbf0aec68490ae2679ef489709c3d18...

This is an interesting analogy because the roadrunner just runs without looking and everything works out fine. Wile E. Coyote only has problems because he is aware of what a huge mistake he’s made. I don’t know what the behavior analogous to road runner is in an economic sense. Perhaps suspending capitalism? I can’t imagine anyone going along with that.

The parallel here, to me, is that the stock market is solely based on investors' perceptions of reality, not reality itself. As soon as investors realize that their investments are untenable, they will pull out, triggering an accelerating freefall until we hit terminal velocity.

The economy is unhealthy but people can be convinced to ignore that because it's not easy to see the holistic conditions of the US economy on a day-to-day basis, and the way we summarize it in public discourse and media (looking at indices of the stock market) are assuaging any fears that may arise.

Personally I find the analogy perfectly apt.

Re: More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A complete rent, mortgage, and property tax holiday/pause for the duration of the emergency, along with universal income assistance at the individual (not corporate) level. As is, only some of those things were done in some places, which almost certainly leads to conflict.

Problem is, there's always two parties in every transaction. Holiday for the rent payer is a death knell for the landlord. Mortgage holiday is the same for the bank and its bondholders/depositors.

Is that a problem? Those landlords and banks have collateral -- the properties and mortgages themselves. I care a lot more about housing from a "how well does it house humans" perspective than a "how well does it generate income for landlords/capitalists" perspective. If landlords and mortgage lenders ended up having to sell their assets for pennies on the dollar, I'd imagine it would make housing a lot more affordable to people and spread more evenly.

Re: More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A complete rent, mortgage, and property tax holiday/pause for the duration of the emergency, along with universal income assistance at the individual (not corporate) level. As is, only some of those things were done in some places, which almost certainly leads to conflict.

Problem is, there's always two parties in every transaction. Holiday for the rent payer is a death knell for the landlord. Mortgage holiday is the same for the bank and its bondholders/depositors.

Exactly, that’s why I suggested suspending capitalism, but in which case what do you replace it with?

We could of course just give everyone what they would have made, based on last year’s tax returns or whatever, of course this has its own problems (inequality, inflation, etc.)

Re: More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A complete rent, mortgage, and property tax holiday/pause for the duration of the emergency, along with universal income assistance at the individual (not corporate) level. As is, only some of those things were done in some places, which almost certainly leads to conflict.

Problem is, there's always two parties in every transaction. Holiday for the rent payer is a death knell for the landlord. Mortgage holiday is the same for the bank and its bondholders/depositors.

trying to find a problem with 'death knell for the landlord' but I can't

Re: More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

#69
post #37

> Bed Bath & Beyond, Famous Footwear, H&M, and the Gap, AMC and Regal movie theaters, and 24 Hour Fitness gyms have all missed payments, jeopardizing the stability of their property management companies and municipal governments that rely on property taxes, The Post's Heather Long reported. All roads lead to the Federal Reserve. Stores defaulting on rent payments starves landlords for cash. Landlords unable to servic…

> The only problem is that the dollar happens to be the world's reserve currency.

This is actually great for the US. As you said, every other country will deflate their own currency so the dollar will likely not change that much relative to the other currencies. The inflation will make people want to spend money, especially a spent up demand is released as the eco use normalize. We may see rapid economic growth.

Re: More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

#70

Is there an economist here that might know if this would lead to stores decreasing prices on products in order to move merchandise, keep the same, or increase?

Way back in the day I worked for CompUSA while they were going out of business and helped shut down a number of their stores in my area. The process was to mark everything back to normal retail prices, announce a going out of business sale and on a set time frame start to lower prices (depending on how fast we needed to clear the store).

Most of the high value things were bought at their normal “on sale” prices with the few things that snuck by to the lower price points getting picked up by employees and friends of employees. Everything else was junk and would get sold off for 40%-80% off of retail. Then we would sell things like shelving and display cases.

Obviously this isn’t an equivalent scenario, but if we start seeing retail stores going out of business, I imagine it will follow a similar pattern.

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