Some call it “unintended consequences”, but the evidence points to a deliberate plan with a built in “Oh gee we didn’t think of that” excuse.
They closed small businesses. These people typically plow most of their money right back into their businesses. Reserves are a very rare luxury in the self-employed world.
Then big government sends a token payment … too little, too late. Business bills keep on rolling in. Commercial real estate is very expensive. Supply chains must be kept alive. Most importantly, the human assets must be fed.
Mom’n’Pop have their personal expenses as do their trained, experienced staffs. Unemployment support is for the workers who are out of work. The self-employed and employers themselves do not qualify.
Oh, we will make LOW COST LOANS available to tide them over.
Successful small businessmen have often survived one or several experiences trying to make their little shop run, feed its needs, demands, requirements, employees, AND service debt. More often than not the combination of those loads bury them.
Government action derailed small businesses from coast to coast. Rather than a hand up, they are being CRUSHED while they are down.
All of those human resources the little shops had developed were ORDERED to stay home. Next they were bribed to continue staying home. Enhanced unemployment benefits are more than many of them were being paid for working 40 hours a week. It is a rare soul who will go to work taking a pay cut in the process. Even near break-even, paid vacation is a strong inducement to discontinue your relationship with the old employer.
Small businesses are scrambling fruitlessly to staff back up. Unfilled job openings abound.
Doors that have been open for years, decades, or more are closing forever.
In 2006 I made up a brochure about small business and the support it gets from Libertarian Party candidates. The data has not changed much since then. To the right are two panels from that brochure. Below is a .pdf of the whole flier.
small business flyer .pdf
I quote from the front page of that brochure:
17 million small businesses in USA constitute 99.7% of employers,
employ 52% of private workforce,
account for 40% of the GDP.
In ‘94 to ‘98, small business-dominated industries provided 11.1 million new jobs;
virtually all of the new jobs created during that time period.
Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and the other mega-corporations were on the receiving end of cash truckload gifts. No problems there even continuing to pay the millionaire executive salaries. No new debt. No interruptions.
Imagine you wanted the masses serving the masters of the mega corporations and its government partners. Free, independent businesses operated by the middle class would be your enemies.
The last few months has destroyed many, with more falling soon.
The great masses are lining up at the government teat with their hands out, obviously with no knowledge of history. Universal basic income has been implemented in the blink of an eye. Federal paper money printing presses and their electronic counterparts are the nation’s new Number One employer.
The United States of American is now a socialist country.
Once the dependency is accepted as normal, the screws tighten down. Our universal income will lag FAR BEHIND actual inflation. Government will take over most industries. Product shortages are standard in planned economies. Poverty, bread lines and barter are on the horizon.
We gave up with barely a peep, not a shot fired.
You might notice that there was no resistance from what they like to call “either side” in the DC Swamp… looking a lot like two sides of the same coin.