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

businessinsider.com

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

#71

Post by munificent »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #45

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…

> undoing a lot of the effects of social distancing

We've had several months of social distancing, which bought us a lot of time to ramp up healthcare and medical supply manufacturing capacity.

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

#72

Post by rootsudo »

ohyes wrote: post #52
chkaloon wrote: post #34

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 problem is we're comparing the economy to cartoon fiction of a bygone era.

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

#73

Post by seph-reed »

I'm kind of glad things are falling apart. It's like walking in the slightly wrong direction, every day you don't change course you add a bit of debt. At this point we're hitting something of a dead end, and it may finally be time to fix things.

It's going to be painful, ofc. But it always was.

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

#74

Post by masnaox »

viscanti wrote: post #28
Ididntdothis wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would make sense to me. Why are some businesses being shut down and have to deal with income losses and others like landlords can keep going and demand their income? This seems fundamentally unfair to me.

Things like property taxes and maintenance are fixed costs for property owners. Those can eat up 50% or more of the rental income. So if renters aren't paying, even property owners who don't have a mortgage have high fixed costs that they have to pay.

maintenance and tax would NEVER get close to 50pct of the rent, let alone more.

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

#75

Post by ohyes »

uoaei wrote: post #65
ohyes wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Right, but we don’t want that. How can we avoid that?

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

#76

Post by crispyporkbites »

Simulacra wrote: post #55

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?

There’s plenty of economists that know the answer to that, not so many that will be right.

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

#77

Post by airza »

nradov wrote: post #26
airza wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Anyone who wants to buy a rental house is free to do so. Just make an unsolicited purchase offer to the landlord for more than the net present value of all expected future rental income. Most landlords are willing to sell their properties, even when they're not currently listed on the market.

I'm sure the landlord is getting a lot of value from their rental property, but why is this configuration of property ownership better for society?

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

#78

Post by MattGaiser »

ikeyany wrote: post #46
chkaloon wrote: post #34

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...

> fragile ... the word is fragile. We've built an insanely fragile economy. Take a look. There's been no war. 100% of the (not so great) US infrastructure that was there before SARS-COV-2 is still there. We've lost about 100k people, which is horrific but in the scheme of things at "USA" scale, and with the skewed demographics, not much of a hit to the economy. And yet the economy is staggering and it's likely to get…

> There's been no war. 100% of the (not so great) US infrastructure that was there before SARS-COV-2 is still there.

The infrastructure may not be physically destroyed, but it is effectively out of commission. Same with everything from warehouses to meat cutting plants. You could make the same argument if a gas attack were used on a factory instead of a bomb.

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

#79

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

fooey wrote: post #62
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #45

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...

My guess is that in two weeks, we will be seeing an infection surge everywhere. So, Utah is not really losing much by opening up now.

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

#80

Post by munificent »

airza wrote: post #15
freeone3000 wrote: post #7

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?

One to look at rent is that it's like the old joke about prostitution: you don't pay for the sex, you pay for them to leave afterwards.

Rent gives you greater location flexibility and less commitment to a specific place and building. You don't have to maintain it yourself, and you are freed from the mental load of having to do long-term planning around it at all. Not that it's necessarily good for the surrounding community, but to some degree, renting gives you the luxury of "driving it like you stole it" and that's a real value for some people.

I own my house. When plumbers dumped water in the basement and destroyed a floor, that was my problem. Renters pay for that kind of stuff to be someone else's problem.

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