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

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61–70 of 89 posts

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

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 incr…

this is super true:

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

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny you mention Yoga studios, as we are actually seeing a big influx from this market for video hosting. Many are starting to productize their lessons which will likely be bigger wins, versus selling their time as instructors. I think it's similar to what your partner is seeing. For many of these businesses, there is a viable online path. But that assumes that they have the skills and desire to operate an online bu…

The world's 50,000th best yoga instructor can probably make a living running a yoga studio. I'm not sure the world's 50,000th best yoga instructor can make a living selling online yoga classes.

someone needs to give you an award

EVERYONE here claiming 'just move your product online' and 'sales have doubled for people who moved online'

do not understand the nature of competition online

You have to be Top 1% online to survive

Top 0.1% to thrive

In the real world you can be the third best coffee shop or t shirt shop in your locality and still do well

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

#63

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…

>"Unless there's some search engine that ranks based on locale"

Yelp works like that as well, Yellow pages and Google Maps too.

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

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 incr…

>The rich get richer. People claim this a lot, but for a half dozen datasets I've looked at over the years, the opposite is true. To prove this claim, make some definition of rich (income, wealth, top N, whatever), and see how many people in that class stay there. You'll find that most rich do not stay in the level of wealth you picked very long. A simple place to check is Forbes 400. The top 400 churns a lot. The ne…

As a personal favor, would you consider writing this brilliant analysis up as a medium (or blog) article? I would very much like to have the ability to share this easily.

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

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world's 50,000th best yoga instructor can probably make a living running a yoga studio. I'm not sure the world's 50,000th best yoga instructor can make a living selling online yoga classes.

I am not sure that is necessarily that bleak. With the right two-way camera system it seems like the Yoga instructor could provide a comparable experience whether remote or local. Seems like we just need better hardware and software.

Remote coaching could be huge. The demand for human interaction has never been higher.

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

#66
post #63

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…

>"Unless there's some search engine that ranks based on locale" Yelp works like that as well, Yellow pages and Google Maps too.

Do ppl actually use Yelp or Google maps for an online fitness class?

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

#67

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.

> before sometime late 2021. I want to see long-term results before I take my chances with a fast-tracked vaccine.

Theses no way there will be a vaccine pushed out before late 2021. That's an optimistic start

Maybe, maybe high risk workers might start larger rollouts mid next year. But even if it's true their vaccine might not even be the one you might be offered.

Being high risk workers you'll also know little since you won't be able to sort danger between the vaccine and their work.

At your safety level you are asking for late 2022 would be an early option. But then the risk from C19 might lower, so you'll have to reassess then.

I doubt most people will get the vaccine.

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

#68

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…

>> I find it very distressing that this massive transfer of wealth from small businesses to megacorps isn't being discussed more.

It's not discussed because people don't care. They are optimizing for one thing and one thing only currently: COVID case counts. Anything to get the number under what they think is a good number, all externalities be damned.

In six months when they can't get their fair trade coffee from their local place, they'll wonder why it is and be sad. But they're as complicit as anyone else in having a zero-tolerance risk threshold with no accounting for externalities.

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

#69

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.

I understand this sentiment, but the more people think this way, the longer it takes to safely get to herd immunity, so there is a massive tradeoff happening here.

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

#70

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…

>> I find it very distressing that this massive transfer of wealth from small businesses to megacorps isn't being discussed more. It's not discussed because people don't care. They are optimizing for one thing and one thing only currently: COVID case counts. Anything to get the number under what they think is a good number, all externalities be damned. In six months when they can't get their fair trade coffee from th…

Your take is dripping with bias. Everyone who had any sense wanted a lockdown with business stimulus, there is no reason these externalities needed to be bad in any capacity. Sacrificing lives because the Republican party is okay with it isn't on the common person.
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