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The state of the restaurant industry

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Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#571

Post by vkou »

imtringued wrote: post #552
vkou wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The ability of my local Chinese place to serve customers is undiminished, my desire to eat Chinese food is undiminished, and all that's in the way is an ultimately temporary law. Six months from now, when the quarantine ends, you aren't going to go to your local Teriyaki and Wok, and order six months wroth of Chinese food. The restaurant will never recoup those six lost months of rent. The employees will never reco…

That's not how margins work. God didn't descend down to earth and declared all restaurants to be low margin. Margin is a matter of competition. If there is lots of competition then the margin will shrink to barely cover costs of running the business. If suddenly every restaurant has a problem finding customers and a load of debt then restaurants are forced to increase their margins to cover their debt payments. Low m…

1. I didn't say one word about margins in my post.

2. The problem is that after the pandemic ends, the margins will remain low. Because new entrants, with no outstanding debts or obligation will eat the lunch of any of the restaurants that remained 'open' during the pandemic.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#572

Post by fma »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #304
fma wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That software engineer would spend it elsewhere in the industry, likely some non-essential. That hourly worker w/o a job will pay rent and food. Software engineer...a carwash, new lawn equiment, or hell even a vacation. Giving an airline a tax break won't drive them more customers. Giving their customers more money will give them customers.

What? Nobody is going to be flying anywhere soon, regardless of whether you give everybody $1000.

$1000 a month per person...Trump has announced at least 2 months of it. I have my salary still. My wife and I get $4000 of free money. What do you think we're going to do with it?

You need to think long term what this money can do.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#573

Post by vkou »

imtringued wrote: post #550
markdown wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The income from the landlord is payment for his/her obligations Read my post again. The rent holiday goes hand in hand with a debt holiday. That's the only way this works. Tenants don't have to pay rent, and landowners don't have to pay a mortgage. Sure some businesses will fail as a result of this , but far more (on a massive scale) will fail if you don't do this.

I don't think you've thought this through. What are the banks going to do if they don't receive their payments? How are you going to bail them out? With a loan? Why not give that loan to those who need it instead of kicking the can down the road?

Yes, with a six-month, zero-interest loan. We are already handing those out like candy, to deal with bank liquidity problems.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#574

Post by coronapanicthrw »

rosybox wrote: post #450
coronapanicthrw wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI You're not alone in observing the echo chamber effect. Those of us who agree with you that some skepticism of the cost/benefit of the intervention is merited have largely avoided posting on our main accounts because of the massive backlash against anything counter-panic-dogma, or our posts have been flagged/deaded with worrying rapidity. There were posts threatening _physical harm_ to individuals questioning the…

Yes it's all crazed conspiracy and you happen to be one of the few people to see through it all. Your medical pedigree must be amazing. Your scientific prowess beyond imagination. You're not helping.

You may not have intended it, but this level of ad-hominem and dismissive response is exactly what I'm referring to. Ignoring the fact that my post had nothing to do with statements requiring Expert background, (which you know absolutely nothing about whether I have or not) I can assure you the majority of individuals here encouraging panic have what you seek. Once again, the hypocrisy here is laughable.

HackerNews used to pride itself in being better than this. YOU are not helping.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#575

Post by GeorgeWBasic »

chii wrote: post #446
GeorgeWBasic wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Far, far, far better. In fact, it's the only thing that might actually work . All this talk of loans is just people refusing to admit that a capitalist system (I hate saying that word) simply doesn't function under these conditions. The economy needs to be paused.

The rental payment from a shop is income for the landlord. The income from the landlord is payment for his/her obligations - all the way up the chain. If you force rental payments to stop, then who gets hit? The landlord is going to default on their obligations. So do you then bail them out? If the landlord defaults, the banks (presumably) will repossess the property. So it's just somebody else suffering, rather than…

> If the landlord defaults, the banks (presumably) will repossess the property

As others have pointed out, this is not what any of us are saying. Those debts are paused too.

The loans DO NOT work, because most of these businesses are barely profitable at all. Now they have to recover to their previous levels of income AND pay back a loan? They can't. It's a ridiculous expectation.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#576

Post by chii »

GeorgeWBasic wrote: post #575
chii wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rental payment from a shop is income for the landlord. The income from the landlord is payment for his/her obligations - all the way up the chain. If you force rental payments to stop, then who gets hit? The landlord is going to default on their obligations. So do you then bail them out? If the landlord defaults, the banks (presumably) will repossess the property. So it's just somebody else suffering, rather than…

> If the landlord defaults, the banks (presumably) will repossess the property As others have pointed out, this is not what any of us are saying. Those debts are paused too. The loans DO NOT work, because most of these businesses are barely profitable at all. Now they have to recover to their previous levels of income AND pay back a loan? They can't. It's a ridiculous expectation.

why is it ridiculous to expect a business to not make any profit after a crisis? The alternative is to close down the business, which, imho, is worse. At least, with the loan, a business that's barely making any profit can continue to barely make any profit after the crisis (but even less profit for the loan repayment). That's a better outcome than losing the business entirely. The employees remain employed, and the economy doesn't grind to a screeching halt into a depression.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#577

Post by Engineering-MD »

Shermanium wrote: post #384

We could turn all these empty hotel rooms into ICU beds if we upgrade to negative pressure ventilation, and we could turn all these empty restaurants into community testing and supply distribution centers staffed by the laid off employees paid for with federal helicopter-drop funds. Think New Deal-level changes.

Not real possible. ITU wards are highly specialised. However the UK is already looking at moving the most well patients to hotels and then uograding wards to ITUs.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#578

Post by GeorgeWBasic »

chii wrote: post #576
GeorgeWBasic wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the landlord defaults, the banks (presumably) will repossess the property As others have pointed out, this is not what any of us are saying. Those debts are paused too. The loans DO NOT work, because most of these businesses are barely profitable at all. Now they have to recover to their previous levels of income AND pay back a loan? They can't. It's a ridiculous expectation.

why is it ridiculous to expect a business to not make any profit after a crisis? The alternative is to close down the business, which, imho, is worse. At least, with the loan, a business that's barely making any profit can continue to barely make any profit after the crisis (but even less profit for the loan repayment). That's a better outcome than losing the business entirely. The employees remain employed, and the…

This has already been explained to you, over and over again. The alternative is not to close down the business. It's to make it so the business owner doesn't have to pay anything during the crisis, except supplies for himself, so that the business doesn't close permanently. The loan is a really, really stupid idea, because it burdens the business more during the recovery, which guaranteed will be less profitable than before this, so it just delays the bankruptcies. You might as well have them not pay it back at all, but then why single out just business owners for free money? Why not everyone else too? And worse, everyone else runs out of money too because debts weren't paused, because enough people are stupid enough to think that loans are the way out of this instead of realizing that the economy doesn't work when nobody's buying anything but food and toilet paper, and pause it to prevent it from destroying itself. If this doesn't get done by the end of the month we're looking at another Great Depression.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#579

Post by int_19h »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #189
baby wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI is honestly the only solution here.

How about something a bit more targeted? Do we really need to give software engineers working from home extra cash?

How much are you willing to pay to make sure that it's targeted? 30% overhead is not uncommon for means-tested welfare.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#580

Post by int_19h »

Ensorceled wrote: post #425
acid__ wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, better from a personal standpoint, but jeez, from a humanitarian perspective, can you really blame any restaurant owner from wanting to make payroll at any cost so that their employees can continue to feed themselves, pay rent, and take care of their loved ones?

My point is why are we putting them in this position? How about a GRANT instead of a loan? The restaurant is TOAST when the loan starts being due as they try to reopen in the middle of recession after a forced closing and they'll all be out of work trying to feed themselves, pay rent and take care of their loved ones.

At that point, you might as well just give that money directly to the restaurant owner, and all the employees, for the duration of the crisis.
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