Is COVID-19 being used to deliberately destroy the small business economy?

 

Bruce Wilds points out that the biggest casualty of "big government's" attempts to compensate for the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been small business.

It appears that Biden simply doesn't get it. Rather than aligning himself with the American worker, he is part of a larger coalition made up of the poor, the deep state, and the globalist elites. All these groups have one thing in common, and that is they are willing to sacrifice our future for more money and power today.

This is evident in a number of policies rubber-stamped by this coalition that constantly favor big businesses such as Amazon over the far smaller companies that made American famous. Giving people money to stay at home and order online is devastating the brick and mortar stores that line the streets of our communities. These are the companies that pay taxes and provide jobs for our friends and families. The major labor shortage and a fall in productivity will have long lasting implications and become evident in the form of stagflation.

Amazon is the poster child of a failing America. In an ever changing economic environment, the government has aided Amazon in destroying America. Things like the USPS slating the company for special services and pricing. Approving Amazon to participate in delivering home grocery delivery on the SNAP program, and locking people in their homes while forcing many small businesses to close during the pandemic have all played to Amazon's advantage.

Not only have small companies lost sales, but they also cannot afford to automate and replace workers with robots like their giant competitor Amazon. Small companies don't have access to the cheap money flowing from Wall Street. This means small companies cannot compete and often cannot pay the same wages as large companies. Instead, small companies across America are forced to cut hours or even close at times because they cannot get employees. When customers find them closed they tend to develop the habit of looking somewhere else to buy things.

Adding to the woes of many smaller businesses are the expensive and ever-changing mandates being placed upon them by those in power.

There's more at the link.

It's worth noting that the stimulus checks sent to American businesses and households, and the increased unemployment benefits that are holding back many Americans from returning to the workforce, affect small business far more than big business.  Big businesses can automate their operations, and/or hire more people by throwing money at the problem.  Small businesses can't afford to do either;  so, when they find themselves short-staffed, it's likely to stay that way, because they don't have the deep pockets and financial reserves to solve the problem.

Brandon Smith asks, "Is The Small Business Sector Being Deliberately Targeted For Destruction?"

With small businesses being hit with a perfect storm leading to mass closures, the end result will be that only major corporations will be left to offer services in the near future, and I’ve been wondering for the past several months now if this is not part of the plan…

I am reminded of the situation that took place during the Great Depression involving small banks. In the 1920s there were thousands of small town and county banks across the country that were unaffiliated with major banks like J.P. Morgan or Chase National. It might sound strange to hear it but before the Depression many banks used to be small mom and pop businesses. By the end of the 1930s over 9000 small banks had failed, and the primary beneficiaries were the major corporate banks that absorbed all the assets into their portfolios for pennies on the dollar.

In other words, the banking industry and the massive power it holds today was consolidated in the wake of the economic collapse of the 1930s, and nothing was ever the same again.

. . .

Today, we may be seeing a similar scenario unfolding. Look at it this way – The lockdowns were completely unnecessary. They didn’t stop infection rates and thus they didn’t save any lives anyway. In fact, the states with the harshest lockdowns and strictest mask mandates also had the worst infection spikes.

The covid unemployment programs are mostly unnecessary and only justified by the pointless lockdowns. And the stagflationary conditions have been mainly inflamed by the trillions in stimulus that the federal government and the Federal Reserve printed from thin air to pay for the unnecessary covid response programs and unemployment. The covid checks and loans have conjured a workforce calamity, but they have also fueled a retail buying spree which is mostly enriching manufacturing hubs like China, triggering exploding shipping demand and shipping costs, straining the supply chain, jamming up cargo ports and raising overall prices by leaps and bounds.

Every single element of this crisis has been engineered. And I would suggest the possibility that, like in the Great Depression, major corporations are once again in a convenient position to devour the small business sector and become the only game in town for all retail and services.

Not only do corporations benefit from the death of small business, but so does the Biden Administration in its relentless pursuit of covid vaccine mandates. Consider for a moment that small businesses are the antithesis to covid controls. Why? Because they offer people who refuse to take the experimental vaccines an alternative to major retailers that might demand to see their vax passports. Small businesses are much more likely to defy the draconian mandates, so Biden also wins by removing competition to the corporate oligarchy that support his controls.

Even if a small business complies with the passport mandates it will not save them, because the amount of extra costs involved in enforcement will be too much for most of them. Constantly policing customers and employees for up-to-date vaccine cards will become a full time job. Any slip up could mean a $70,000 to $700,000 fine, and because they have already submitted to the passports those businesses will have no backup from the community if they try to refuse to pay. They will ultimately close down anyway.

Again, more at the link.

Until recently, small business provided a very large proportion of jobs and economic activity in the US economy.

• In 2018, there were 30.2 million small businesses in the United States, which employed 47.5 percent of private employees.
• In 2019, the Small Business Administration said that "Small businesses are the lifeblood of the U.S. economy: they create two-thirds of net new jobs and drive U.S. innovation and competitiveness. A new report shows that they account for 44 percent of U.S. economic activity."
• COVID-19 hit small businesses much harder than larger ones.  A 2020 report claimed that "According to the latest small business statistics, nearly one-third (31 percent) of small businesses in the U.S. are currently not operational ... Over 70 percent of US small businesses shut down in March, when the U.S. became the new epicenter of the virus. More than 60 percent of these small businesses that closed were due to government or health authority orders, as large parts of the country went into lockdown in a bid to curb the spread of the virus."

That's an awfully large segment of the economy to destroy:  but hard-line socialists appear willing to do so if it'll advance their agenda.  In so many words, the destruction of small businesses benefits the politically correct, progressive-left society that many are trying to force upon us;  so they aren't likely to try to help small businesses come back to life.

How many of you, readers, work for small businesses (under 500 employees, according to the Small Business Administration)?  How many of you work for really small businesses (let's say fewer than 25 employees)?  My wife and myself fall into the latter category, with me being self-employed as a writer and she working for a very small company.  Are you finding the COVID-19, politically correct economy as difficult as we are?  Do you think Bruce Wilds and Brandon Smith are right?  It looks that way to me.

Peter