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Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

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Re: Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

#31

Post by Hokusai »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #30
lockdownornot wrote: post #5

Guess who bought up real estate post-2009 crisis, when prices were at rock bottom? Wealthy individuals and corporations that had enough assets to withstand the storm and capitalize on a down market. Guess who will grab more market share post-COVID? Better yet, guess who wasn't affected by forced lockdowns and benefited during the worst of COVID? I find it very distressing that this massive transfer of wealth from sma…

A good discussion of pros and cons of consolidation should be included. E.g. economies of scale are almost always more energy / environmentally friendly (efficient). Lack of diversity, bad. Increased monopoly power, bad. Increased consolidation for following regulations, good.

> E.g. economies of scale are almost always more energy / environmentally friendly (efficient).

This is just an argument for communism, and that does not work so well. Planning all the economy in a centralized way, private or public, is a bad idea.

Capitalism is build in the idea of many producers trying to get to many consumers. When you only have one or a few producers it stops being capitalism.

Re: Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

#32

Post by Nasrudith »

lockdownornot wrote: post #5

Guess who bought up real estate post-2009 crisis, when prices were at rock bottom? Wealthy individuals and corporations that had enough assets to withstand the storm and capitalize on a down market. Guess who will grab more market share post-COVID? Better yet, guess who wasn't affected by forced lockdowns and benefited during the worst of COVID? I find it very distressing that this massive transfer of wealth from sma…

That is essentially the ugly nature of recessions period. Those who buy it up for fire sale prices get the assets and the worst part is stopping it without funding the losers would only make it /worse/ for them. The only good I can see from restrictions there is barring profit from those who promote or cause recessions which is a very tall order to prove much less how to make illegal without ironically larger collateral damage. (You invested at the top? Lose your shirt and go to jail would be stupid tyranny.)

Technically "wealthy" is a neccessary but not sufficent condition for "available assets sufficient to take advantage".

The only way the buyers could lose long term is if the assets go down /even more/ which needless to say would be bad for everyone.

Gross as it sounds I am not sure if there is a better solution possible right now other than "loot the proverbial corpses and move on". It isn't really news in itself.

Re: Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

#33

Post by bdcravens »

dharma1 wrote: post #26

Anecdote - I had a small amount of money invested in SME lending through an online p2p lending platform since last year (UK). Not super high interest rates, about 6-8%, all "AAA" rated businesses. Before covid, default rates were a couple of percent. Right now 25% of the businesses in the loan book are late with repayments, I expect many of them will default and stop trading. And this is while government subsidies ar…

> until we get mass vaccination

FUD is already spreading among the gullible about the coming vaccines, and I wish I was confident that it'll be a negligible percentage who believe the fake news

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/22/bill-gates-denies-conspiracy...

Re: Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

#34

Post by Nasrudith »

Hokusai wrote: post #31
mensetmanusman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good discussion of pros and cons of consolidation should be included. E.g. economies of scale are almost always more energy / environmentally friendly (efficient). Lack of diversity, bad. Increased monopoly power, bad. Increased consolidation for following regulations, good.

> E.g. economies of scale are almost always more energy / environmentally friendly (efficient). This is just an argument for communism, and that does not work so well. Planning all the economy in a centralized way, private or public, is a bad idea. Capitalism is build in the idea of many producers trying to get to many consumers. When you only have one or a few producers it stops being capitalism.

Technically the distinction is between how the dominant position is maintained. Is it a defacto crime to try to compete or is it just impossible until you can do much better? There is a big difference in dynamics between trying to build from the start for the max size or an emergent system from growth.

Re: Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

#35

Post by jansan »

mistrial9 wrote: post #29
jansan wrote: post #25

Who the hell killed the comment on the booming patio business? Here, pools have become all the rage. People cannot go on holiday, but enough people still have money. So what do they do? They try to make their home to resemble their holiday dream as much as possible, with decks, pools and outdoor furniture.

expensive home additions seem to be booming in the SF Bay Area, along with sudden residential vacancies, right next to them

That's the thing with disruptions. One man's crisis is another man's opportunity. Unfortunately, with corona the crises far outnumber the chances, but chances do exist.

Re: Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

#36

Post by ChrisLomont »

rjkennedy98 wrote: post #28
lockdownornot wrote: post #5

Guess who bought up real estate post-2009 crisis, when prices were at rock bottom? Wealthy individuals and corporations that had enough assets to withstand the storm and capitalize on a down market. Guess who will grab more market share post-COVID? Better yet, guess who wasn't affected by forced lockdowns and benefited during the worst of COVID? I find it very distressing that this massive transfer of wealth from sma…

Because it’s deliberate. The parasitic elite have been destroying the core of this country for almost half a century. The government (serving only the rich) doesn’t care about us and this virus is just another opportunity for them to gather more in their greedy arms.

>The parasitic elite have been destroying the core of this country for almost half a century

Yet over that half a century the standard of living in the US has vastly increased, so much that the US poverty line is in the top quintile of world incomes.

US Median household wealth adjusted for household size changes and inflation has increased 50%. That's a massive increase [1].

The middle class has shrunk; because more moved up and above it than went below it. The share of US households, again adjusted for proper effects, making over 100K has tripled since 1967 [2].

Not many first world countries saw this kind of growth for the people you claim are being destroyed.

Care to point out which metric you are using to claim the core of this country is being destroyed? It's certainly not income.

[1] https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-...

[2] https://www.cato.org/blog/middle-class-shrinking-households-...

Re: Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

#37

Post by WorldMaker »

bdcravens wrote: post #33
dharma1 wrote: post #26

Anecdote - I had a small amount of money invested in SME lending through an online p2p lending platform since last year (UK). Not super high interest rates, about 6-8%, all "AAA" rated businesses. Before covid, default rates were a couple of percent. Right now 25% of the businesses in the loan book are late with repayments, I expect many of them will default and stop trading. And this is while government subsidies ar…

> until we get mass vaccination FUD is already spreading among the gullible about the coming vaccines, and I wish I was confident that it'll be a negligible percentage who believe the fake news https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/22/bill-gates-denies-conspiracy...

It's also optimistic that a vaccine for this virus is even possible or likely in our lifetimes. No member of the coronavirus family has yet to succumb to a vaccine in mass trials, and it is a large family with decades of attempts.

(I love the counter optimism that if we succeed with a coronavirus vaccine we have a likelihood to vaccinate against nearly a third of the common cold and it can join the flu as something if we'd all annually vaccinate would trouble us a lot less. But pessimism worries that is a big if.)

Re: Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

#38

Post by downrightmike »

bdcravens wrote: post #33
dharma1 wrote: post #26

Anecdote - I had a small amount of money invested in SME lending through an online p2p lending platform since last year (UK). Not super high interest rates, about 6-8%, all "AAA" rated businesses. Before covid, default rates were a couple of percent. Right now 25% of the businesses in the loan book are late with repayments, I expect many of them will default and stop trading. And this is while government subsidies ar…

> until we get mass vaccination FUD is already spreading among the gullible about the coming vaccines, and I wish I was confident that it'll be a negligible percentage who believe the fake news https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/22/bill-gates-denies-conspiracy...

The USA can't even get enough needles to vaccinate everyone once, not to mention those who need needles for medicine. The only way forward is to have dumb people behave like they aren't complete dipshits. That won't happen. This same shit happened with the Spanish Flu. VE day was responsible for the largest outbreak because of parades and parties. Wonder what will get them to congregate this time. Probably a mix of rioting and fascism.

Re: Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

#39

Post by 01100011 »

bdcravens wrote: post #33
dharma1 wrote: post #26

Anecdote - I had a small amount of money invested in SME lending through an online p2p lending platform since last year (UK). Not super high interest rates, about 6-8%, all "AAA" rated businesses. Before covid, default rates were a couple of percent. Right now 25% of the businesses in the loan book are late with repayments, I expect many of them will default and stop trading. And this is while government subsidies ar…

> until we get mass vaccination FUD is already spreading among the gullible about the coming vaccines, and I wish I was confident that it'll be a negligible percentage who believe the fake news https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/22/bill-gates-denies-conspiracy...

I love the work Bill Gates is doing, I'm pro vaccine, and there's no way in hell I'm getting the COVID vaccine before sometime late 2021. I want to see long-term results before I take my chances with a fast-tracked vaccine. I suspect that there are lots of other folks with the same mindset.

Re: Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands – and No One Is Tracking the Carnage

#40

Post by gregoriol »

WorldMaker wrote: post #37
bdcravens wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> until we get mass vaccination FUD is already spreading among the gullible about the coming vaccines, and I wish I was confident that it'll be a negligible percentage who believe the fake news https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/22/bill-gates-denies-conspiracy...

It's also optimistic that a vaccine for this virus is even possible or likely in our lifetimes. No member of the coronavirus family has yet to succumb to a vaccine in mass trials, and it is a large family with decades of attempts. (I love the counter optimism that if we succeed with a coronavirus vaccine we have a likelihood to vaccinate against nearly a third of the common cold and it can join the flu as something i…

Actually it seems that a few large scale trials are starting, and Dr. Fauci was optimistic for November
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