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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

#41

Post by gregoriol »

catsarebetter wrote: post #22

In the Bay Area, a lot of stores are closing down, not 50% but probably around 30%-50% range depending on which part. Places with less traffic are getting hit harder (obv). The thing that you have to understand is that the smbs were competing with other local smbs. So your favorite local coffeeshop only had 4 other competitors (not in SF lol). Ppl who used to type in "yoga classes near me" will be typing in "yoga cla…

Some local shops around my place have done great online reaches: some food shops did online order/pickup, some drinks (bottles) did online order/delivery, ...

Most have reinforced their followers on social networks.

There are some reasons to be optimistic for those who make the move!

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

#42

Post by dharma1 »

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...

Yes this is a worry. Together with the possibility of early vaccines having significantly less than 70% efficacy

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

#43

Post by mortenjorck »

This article omits the other half of the one-two punch many small businesses have endured this summer, losses from civil unrest.

I'd recommend this piece: https://medium.com/@mtracey/two-months-since-the-riots-and-s... It's a somewhat long-winded bit of reporting, and has a certain media-cynic slant to it, but gives an on-the-ground perspective into how businesses in less-populous areas affected by the unrest in late May have been coping.

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

#44

Post by Supermancho »

ChrisLomont wrote: post #36
rjkennedy98 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm not sure how this demonstrates your point. The rich get richer.

US households have changed dramatically since 1967. There's participation of women in the workforce (up about 20% https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2002/05/art2full.pdf), housing prices have gone up about (~800% https://dqydj.com/historical-home-prices/) - home ownership being the hallmark of the middle class, and the wages of the middle class have increased about 300% although that's 1000% more than the average personal income. Once you obtain a home, you can springboard (in a generation or 5) into the wealthy class. Even at that rate, you're the poor elite making a measly $1m a year without working.

The parasitic elite (in the US) have CRUSHED the working class by ensuring that entering the middle class is as difficult as possible, while the middle class have largely used property to boost themselves into their own generational wealth. The inflation has been due to US debt, which comes from Military spending, QE, etc. The public market has been dominated by large brands who have a slew of predatory practices (looking at you JPM Chase, Apple, Bank of America, etc). NIMBY policies (by the newly elevated middle class, clutching their pearls) and work centralization in dense urban settings, has hurt the whole situation...but there's hope with Covid, ironically. That's what I believe based on my own observation (and experience).

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

#45

Post by tdeck »

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.

In this case I don't see how consolidation of real estate ownership can yield any benefits in terms of efficiency. It seems like if anything it would lead to more sprawl as people are forced to move further from urban areas to buy affordable land.

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

#46

Post by skookum »

downrightmike wrote: post #38
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...

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 r…

> VE day was responsible for the largest outbreak because of parades and parties.

VE Day was two and a half decades after the Spanish Flu pandemic.

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

#47

Post by ffpip »

01100011 wrote: post #39
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...

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.

Vladimir Putin allegedly made his own daughter take the vaccine.

I don't know if that is true. Maybe just a lie to make the public believe it is safe.

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

#48

Post by pintxo »

01100011 wrote: post #39
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...

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.

It's a very understandable mindset and I tend to sympathize with it. On the other hand, fast-tracked does not necessarily mean less safe.

As far as my understanding for clinical trials goes, we can still have the exact same tests with the exact same criteria and quality but still speed up the overall process. Simply by eliminating the default waterfall and accepting higher financial risk. (Also higher medical risk, but only within the trials, not for the end-product).

Usually, one would run the various trials strictly in order:

    trial_stage = 0;
    while (trial_stage
Under pressure, we can start the next stage while the previous one is not finished yet. This means higher financial risk, as you are investing already into stage II even if you do not know if stage I will in the end be successful. This also implies higher medical risk for stage II but this risk stays within the trials.

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

#49

Post by 01100011 »

pintxo wrote: post #48
01100011 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a very understandable mindset and I tend to sympathize with it. On the other hand, fast-tracked does not necessarily mean less safe. As far as my understanding for clinical trials goes, we can still have the exact same tests with the exact same criteria and quality but still speed up the overall process. Simply by eliminating the default waterfall and accepting higher financial risk. (Also higher medical risk, b…

My main worry is that there may be longer term effects which are not apparent for a year or more. There doesn't seem to be a way to ensure long term effects are absent besides conducting a long term test. I'll happily get my flu shot this year though, so perhaps I'm being a bit hypocritical.

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

#50

Post by WorldMaker »

gregoriol wrote: post #40
WorldMaker wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The fastest vaccine our species has successfully made took 5 years of trials. November is beyond the traditional definition of "optimistic" by an order of magnitude.

I want to believe in a November miracle, but pessimism says to curb our enthusiasm (greatly). (Also, it is probably mostly a "coincidence" Dr. Fauci's job currently requires him to say everything will be better by November because of pressure from a certain election cycle.)

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