The small biz plans I've been hearing are NO HELP to the small biz. I own 2 small businesses, with a total of 24 employees. One of the businesses has programming staff that works remotely, only, so no problem. The other business is a manufacturing company with 20 employees and tight margins. We primarily manufacture goods for construction projects where the ultimate project owner is the Army Corps of Engineers. Since our products are custom for each installation, we have no inventory. If our team isn't working, we aren't making any money, just like a restaurant. Loaning me money to pay employees while they aren't working isn't going to help one bit. Since we are in construction, we have regular layoffs, as any construction outfit does, depending primarily on weather and political decisions. When work stops, my workers stay afloat through the unemployment system. We offer a great benefit package for a small company with paid vacations, paid holiday's, health insurance plan, accident insurance plan, life insurance plan, and 401K plan. Keeping up with the benefit payments for the employees while they are on layoff is hard enough, but burdening my with also keeping up with payroll is just the type of assistance I cannot afford. Later when the workers are back on the job, and those loans come due, even at zero interest, the margins are not sufficient enough to double my labor overhead and remain afloat. Its just that simple. A more reasonable assistance to small biz would look something like: 1. Take care of the employees on layoff by propping up the unemployment systems of the states and not requiring affected workers to have a multi-week delay prior to receiving benefits
2. Assist the businesses with fixed overhead, NOT SURE what this would look like...still the Peter and Paul issue of borrowing from future proceeds. These fixed overhead issues would be enough to put small biz under in and of itself, so this is where the assistance is needed.
I'm sure there are other things that would be more reasonable than a loan.
Great comments Erick on all points. Properly budgeting spending is important but so is responding to emergencies. A possible worst case outcome of not taking steps to slow/stop the spread of Corona is something like a million dead US citizens (+/- a great bit of uncertainty). This has forced governments at all levels to shut down portions of the economy to try to prevent that health emergency. Consequently, governments of all levels are responsible for the economic consequences of temporarily shutting down the economy. And the Democrats answers (like universal health insurance) haven't worked to slow the spread in Europe. In fact, within a week after Trump shut down travel from EU, the EU countries are shutting down travel, closing borders, and locking down their country, because it is the most sensible plan for slowing/stopping the spread of the virus.
I wonder how the researchers would explain the outbreaks of the virus in places like the Philippines and Malaysia where temperatures are currently between 75 - 95 with 77%+ humidity. Seems inconsistent with their thinking that “all cities” with a major outbreak are in cooler climates and the virus doesn’t spread as easily in warmer climates.
The small biz plans I've been hearing are NO HELP to the small biz. I own 2 small businesses, with a total of 24 employees. One of the businesses has programming staff that works remotely, only, so no problem. The other business is a manufacturing company with 20 employees and tight margins. We primarily manufacture goods for construction projects where the ultimate project owner is the Army Corps of Engineers. Since our products are custom for each installation, we have no inventory. If our team isn't working, we aren't making any money, just like a restaurant. Loaning me money to pay employees while they aren't working isn't going to help one bit. Since we are in construction, we have regular layoffs, as any construction outfit does, depending primarily on weather and political decisions. When work stops, my workers stay afloat through the unemployment system. We offer a great benefit package for a small company with paid vacations, paid holiday's, health insurance plan, accident insurance plan, life insurance plan, and 401K plan. Keeping up with the benefit payments for the employees while they are on layoff is hard enough, but burdening my with also keeping up with payroll is just the type of assistance I cannot afford. Later when the workers are back on the job, and those loans come due, even at zero interest, the margins are not sufficient enough to double my labor overhead and remain afloat. Its just that simple. A more reasonable assistance to small biz would look something like: 1. Take care of the employees on layoff by propping up the unemployment systems of the states and not requiring affected workers to have a multi-week delay prior to receiving benefits
2. Assist the businesses with fixed overhead, NOT SURE what this would look like...still the Peter and Paul issue of borrowing from future proceeds. These fixed overhead issues would be enough to put small biz under in and of itself, so this is where the assistance is needed.
I'm sure there are other things that would be more reasonable than a loan.
Great comments Erick on all points. Properly budgeting spending is important but so is responding to emergencies. A possible worst case outcome of not taking steps to slow/stop the spread of Corona is something like a million dead US citizens (+/- a great bit of uncertainty). This has forced governments at all levels to shut down portions of the economy to try to prevent that health emergency. Consequently, governments of all levels are responsible for the economic consequences of temporarily shutting down the economy. And the Democrats answers (like universal health insurance) haven't worked to slow the spread in Europe. In fact, within a week after Trump shut down travel from EU, the EU countries are shutting down travel, closing borders, and locking down their country, because it is the most sensible plan for slowing/stopping the spread of the virus.
This is excellent stuff! Great job Erick!
I wonder how the researchers would explain the outbreaks of the virus in places like the Philippines and Malaysia where temperatures are currently between 75 - 95 with 77%+ humidity. Seems inconsistent with their thinking that “all cities” with a major outbreak are in cooler climates and the virus doesn’t spread as easily in warmer climates.