The lack of masks, tests, toilet paper, (insert whatever here) is due to the hyper-efficiency of modern inventory control systems. “Inventory” is another word for “stuff you have paid for but are waiting to sell”. Large inventories are essentially money that is sitting around doing nothing, so companies adopt systems like “just in time delivery” to keep inventories low.
In the old days if a store was out of something, you could usually ask if they had more in back, and generally they would. Now a modern store carries at most a week’s worth of sales, and with Walmart, probably more like a couple days. It’s why when the paper in a city of 100,000 people runs a recipe that calls for maraschino cherries (or something semi-unusual) it is a certainty that Walmart will be out of them. That’s because 3 people got there before you, and all they have are three jars.
This economy is a huge stack of cards - it’s so interconnected and technology dependent that the fact that it can even be relatively stable is a miracle.
I don’t have a solution. I honestly think nobody does. It’s just going to plow along and crush whoever gets in the way. RIght now we have gangsters riding on top of this metaphorical monster pretending that they are in control. No, they are milking this for everything it has, and they always will.
I used to go to Whetherspoons in the past, they had a good selection of local ales and food was cheap (also bad, but cheap) in a hurry you could always pop in and out and get a pint and a so-so burger and chips
Since the brexit referendum and as an european living in the UK I have refused to to near any of his pubs. I despise the guy, I despise how he made a fortune selling cheap alcohol to the most vulnerable, the unemployed, people living on benefits…
I despise how he hired masses of low paid european workers while at the same time aligning himself with the most racist of brexiteers, blaming the EU for everything, real or not and pandering the most vile of rhetoric against europe
He is the textbook example of a radical Tory that cannot wait to get rid of “european legislation” so he can do as he wishes with his employees. It it was up to him, he would have 6 year olds working 14 hours a day in the kitchen
“The estimated Net Worth of David Overton is at least $74.4 Million dollars as of 28 February 2019. Mr. Overton owns over 170,000 units of Cheesecake Factory stock worth over $56,211,145 and over the last 16 years he sold CAKE stock worth over $11,913,704. In addition, he makes $6,267,150 as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer at Cheesecake Factory.”
Many of the commercial property owners in my city have proved time and time again that they would rather have a property empty than have a tenant who wouldn’t pay the rent, or even agree to an extortionate increase in the rent. I think the local Cheesecake Factory will probably be told to leave.
As they have the right to do. A responsible landlord will try to cut some kind of deal with a struggling tenant (an individual, not a Cheesecake Factory) and give them some time to get their shit together, but in some cases the landlord is just an average joe with an extra property or two, living in its income. (In Honolulu has been common to approve mortgages on home purchases with the understanding that an attached flat would be an income property. I have neighbors that would have to sell their homes if their tenants couldn’t pay them and they had no recourse to recover the money.)
Very hopeful but terribly naive I’m afraid. Economic re-structuring in history of the magnitude you suggest has meant years, or even decades of chaos. Think Russia after the fall of the U.S.S.R. And the political fallout of such widespread suffering is likely to lead to further erosion of liberal forms of government, civil liberties and the rule of law.
It seems to me - why don’t we suspend all payments. Everyone just skip a mortgage/rent payment? In the case of the mortgage, it will get paid eventually, will skipping a payment really ruin the bank? Shit, they got a bit more interest because it will take an extra month to pay it off.
With rent, I mean, If they landlord is paying a mortgage, they get to skip a payment, why not the renters? Maybe with renters we have to make it up. I dunno. For every huge apt complex like what I live in, there are 100 smaller landords with a handful of units.
Credit card companies? Shiiit - they can skip a payment.
Utilities? Skip or defer.
If I didn’t have my monthly bills to pay, I could live VERY cheaply to get by for food and necessary supplies.
Right? We know that when something like this happens, it’s always the smaller businesses that end up gutted and bought out by larger corporations. A good example is the corporate consolidation of the cultural industries during the depression. In the 20s there had been numerous record labels and smaller film production companies that catered to niche markets, and those either went under or had their catalogues/films bought out by companies that could weather the storm, because they were large enough to scrap by in the lean years to be able to buy out others.
I see no reason why the current situation won’t turn out similarly.
Many commercial real estate owners would prefer to have a property empty than lower the asking rent because the real estate is more valuable to them as an investment asset than an income stream, and if they have to choose one they’ll choose the former. The value of real estate as an investment asset is often determined in large part by the rent asked for, regardless of whether anyone is paying it. This is why commercial real estate will give a commercial tenant a certain number of months free as a concession rather than a reduced rent rate even if the free months add up to more of a concession. Those free months of rent don’t count against the property value, but lowering the rent rate often does.
The whole system is fucked up and leads to a lot of empty commercial real estate just as allowing private equity firms to park their cash in residential properties for the same reason leads to property value bubbles and empty homes no one can afford to rent or buy.
And many such companies are over-leveraged. Hell, most big businesses period are over-leveraged because shareholders will handsomely reward executives willing to jeopardize the financial security of those companies, along with everyone who works for them or depends on them, for higher dividends while punishing executives that actually try to operate with healthy reserves. That’s how you get airlines going broke after a couple months of low income clamoring for your tax dollars instead of facing the music and getting bought low by someone else when they go bankrupt. And the politicians who rely on them for campaign contributions will give it to them while shafting the American workers.
In this case both Cheesecake Factory and their commercial landlords have been incentivized to build a relationship that falls apart when one can’t sustain their end of it because they operate with razor thin margins. The only way you can keep the relationship from falling apart is to institute a uniform pause on both of them for the same duration. You may not care what happens to Cheesecake Factory or their commercial landlords, but it’s an example of what will be repeated throughout the real estate market, which will ripple through the rest of the economy. All because politicians were too chickenshit to lead.
You’re missing my point. I’m not passing a value judgement on the tenants or the landlords. I’m saying the chaos of asymmetric shut-downs is poisonous. It’s not the “free market” at work. It’s government placing the burden of the Great Pause solely on the tenants because that way they only alienate the tenants and can still count on campaign contributions of real estate conglomerates and investment firms. Follow the money, it leads right to America getting fucked over by the ruling classes.
You pause it all together or you reap the whirlwind. Or rather we reap the whirlwind while the politicians cower.
Yup, because big business has the leverage to shift some of the burden to their suppliers and landlords as well as the campaign contributions to receive bailouts from our tax dollars while small businesses and small landlords are left to drown and get bought out by the very same corporate welfare the government gave the “too big to fail” businesses.
They will come out of this okay… my local record/comic shop in that desirable, trendy neighborhood with rising rents that has had to close… maybe not so much.
I the asymmetry can be truly eliminated (or at least reduced) through policy then that would be great, though I think that in some cases (such as the residential rentals cases I mention) that might be difficult. A month moratorium on mortgage generally only serves to increase the amount of money eventually owed.
And that’s why you have to pause the mortgages as well.
More difficult that another Great Depression/Recession? Because that’s what we’re headed for if policy doesn’t institute a uniform moratorium for the duration of the quarantine, and the government shows no sign of doing so.
