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40% of California's small businesses died in the last two years

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Re: 40% of California's small businesses died in the last two years

#21
post #3

Not surprising, I see so many downtown areas still closed in the SJ area. It's tough to open a business when the people in the area don't have the money to buy your products. When 2/3rd's of the nation are paycheck to paycheck, even in an affluent area like SJ, if your business is not providing something extremely essential, then you are effectively marketing to just 1/3rd of the population with money. This tautology…

Except this is the opposite of the actual problem. There's plenty of cash floating around right now: it's why inflation is high. We're finally hitting real supply limits. It's the hottest job market in most people's lifetimes. The fact of the matter is most small businesses are crap businesses. They also abuse their workers in ways big business can't get away with, both illegally and legally. If you work for an emplo…

No post body was provided.

Re: 40% of California's small businesses died in the last two years

#22
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact of the matter is most small businesses are crap businesses. > They also abuse their workers in ways big business can't get away with, both illegally and legally. Really? You know this to be a fact? It appears that the only thing you know about small business comes from what you read on /r/antiwork The fact of the matter is that 47% of Americans are employed by small businesses. That percentage keeps droppi…

That sounds like a crappy business that can benefit from economies of scale.

Absolutely.

All he needs to do is dig up the 100 million dollars he has buried around his yard so that he can scale to the point that taking a 300% hit on materials doesn't affect him.

Or maybe he should spend some of his billions to buy up all of the apple orchards in the region so he can better control his supply chain (and, coincidentally, that of his competitors)

Scaling has its limits, unfortunately)

Re: 40% of California's small businesses died in the last two years

#23
I closed mine down in December. Got sick of arguing with the Sf assessors office over some shit they made up. They’re not available on the phone (my accountant tried to call half a dozen times), didn’t respond to 5 letters, Oh and they hit me with 10,000% fines/fees while I attempted to contest the made up thing. It was literally easier to shut down and start over someplace else.

Re: 40% of California's small businesses died in the last two years

#24
post #3

Not surprising, I see so many downtown areas still closed in the SJ area. It's tough to open a business when the people in the area don't have the money to buy your products. When 2/3rd's of the nation are paycheck to paycheck, even in an affluent area like SJ, if your business is not providing something extremely essential, then you are effectively marketing to just 1/3rd of the population with money. This tautology…

Except this is the opposite of the actual problem. There's plenty of cash floating around right now: it's why inflation is high. We're finally hitting real supply limits. It's the hottest job market in most people's lifetimes. The fact of the matter is most small businesses are crap businesses. They also abuse their workers in ways big business can't get away with, both illegally and legally. If you work for an emplo…

People don’t like to hear this but a lot of small businesses (especially restaurants) are barely profitable and basically dead men walking. They can barely make payroll and can’t weather even a month of closure, let alone a pandemic. They are “shitty” businesses not because their owners are shitty or that they are doing shitty things, but simply because they just don’t make enough money consistently to be viable.

Warren Buffet said “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.” Well, the tide went out in 2020 and we saw which companies were not solvent enough to survive even brief closures. They aren’t bad people but their companies unfortunately were only economically viable in a sustained bull market.

Re: 40% of California's small businesses died in the last two years

#25

The normal rate for small business failure is 20% in the first year. Does 40% in two years seem out of line? Without some normal value, '40% died' is just clickbait.

It's higher than that depending on the industry, but you are assuming that 100% of small businesses started right as the lockdowns hit. Most small businesses that make it past the first couple years last a long time.

Re: 40% of California's small businesses died in the last two years

#26
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except this is the opposite of the actual problem. There's plenty of cash floating around right now: it's why inflation is high. We're finally hitting real supply limits. It's the hottest job market in most people's lifetimes. The fact of the matter is most small businesses are crap businesses. They also abuse their workers in ways big business can't get away with, both illegally and legally. If you work for an emplo…

People don’t like to hear this but a lot of small businesses (especially restaurants) are barely profitable and basically dead men walking. They can barely make payroll and can’t weather even a month of closure, let alone a pandemic. They are “shitty” businesses not because their owners are shitty or that they are doing shitty things, but simply because they just don’t make enough money consistently to be viable. War…

There's a difference between a bear market and having your business shut down by the government.

Re: 40% of California's small businesses died in the last two years

#27
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a crappy business that can benefit from economies of scale.

Absolutely. All he needs to do is dig up the 100 million dollars he has buried around his yard so that he can scale to the point that taking a 300% hit on materials doesn't affect him. Or maybe he should spend some of his billions to buy up all of the apple orchards in the region so he can better control his supply chain (and, coincidentally, that of his competitors) Scaling has its limits, unfortunately)

Yeah: https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr...

The bottom 50% of the US has 2.6% of the wealth. The 50-90% bracket has 27.6%.

Re: 40% of California's small businesses died in the last two years

#28
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except this is the opposite of the actual problem. There's plenty of cash floating around right now: it's why inflation is high. We're finally hitting real supply limits. It's the hottest job market in most people's lifetimes. The fact of the matter is most small businesses are crap businesses. They also abuse their workers in ways big business can't get away with, both illegally and legally. If you work for an emplo…

People don’t like to hear this but a lot of small businesses (especially restaurants) are barely profitable and basically dead men walking. They can barely make payroll and can’t weather even a month of closure, let alone a pandemic. They are “shitty” businesses not because their owners are shitty or that they are doing shitty things, but simply because they just don’t make enough money consistently to be viable. War…

This is the biggest issue - many small businesses are small margin businesses. Force a shutdown for a month or two and you've wiped out profit for an entire year.

Not surprising in the least that after two years of uncertainty, business owners just hung up their hat and decided to do something else.

Re: 40% of California's small businesses died in the last two years

#30
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except this is the opposite of the actual problem. There's plenty of cash floating around right now: it's why inflation is high. We're finally hitting real supply limits. It's the hottest job market in most people's lifetimes. The fact of the matter is most small businesses are crap businesses. They also abuse their workers in ways big business can't get away with, both illegally and legally. If you work for an emplo…

> The fact of the matter is most small businesses are crap businesses. > They also abuse their workers in ways big business can't get away with, both illegally and legally. Really? You know this to be a fact? It appears that the only thing you know about small business comes from what you read on /r/antiwork The fact of the matter is that 47% of Americans are employed by small businesses. That percentage keeps droppi…

You sure have a lot of details about your friend's business. Most friends might say, "hey my cost of goods went way up" or "almost doubled". Your friend is oddly specific. And he doesn't have "a bunch of workers" but exactly 8. You must be a very close friend!
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