‘Crisis even bigger than Covid’: American business owners are barely getting by

1436 points by Extension-Finance179 4 hours ago on reddit | 113 comments

rydogski | 4 hours ago

Yeah that's the point. Let family business amd farms suffer so that a corporate conglomerate can buy it out from under them and then eventually sell off to private equity and then eventually close.

shivaswrath | 4 hours ago

They want consolidation. And they want it fast.

What’s that economics theory that most industries consolidate into 2-3 major corporations? I feel like we are there.

ArdenJaguar | 3 hours ago

The quicker they become full blown robber barons the sooner the 99% can be completely economically enslaved.

orthaeus | 3 hours ago

Inequality right now is worse than the gilded age.

ArdenJaguar | 3 hours ago

They’re buying up huge swaths of houses too. Everyone will be indentured. Next up… Company towns.

WeirdKittens | 3 hours ago

Paid in company issued stablecoins.

Dystopian.

NihiloZero | 2 hours ago

Americans becoming serfs or slaves is just them returning to the global historic mean. The norm for most people has always been owning little or nothing. If it weren't for climate change dooming us all in the near future... folks would also be willing to accept it now. But global warming will soon make accepting or refusing a thing of the past.

milfordcubicle | 2 hours ago

Well that's fucking bleak.

a_library_socialist | 2 hours ago

Socialism or barbarism, always has been.

pabodie | 3 hours ago

Google pronomos and praxis both w Theil.

basquehomme | an hour ago

Theres a law against this now. Thank Sen. Warnock.

MrMedallion | an hour ago

Company countries I think is the point

Useless | 6 minutes ago

And with AI tools good enough to build a fully functional surveillance state, and a government that does fuck all to police the powerful, all those fascist dreams from the 20's and 30's can finally be realized.

Apexnanoman | 2 hours ago

Well I mean it's what 77.3 million people were dreaming of when they voted.

Richer billionaires (how trumpers idolize) is one of the things they specifically voted for.

They want zero government regulations on any business at all. Because for maga government regulations is interfering with the business of the rich getting richer.

77.3 million people can't stand that.

ArdenJaguar | 2 hours ago

A big chunk of them were voting hate and fear. Race, LGBT, replacement theory, etc. Trump harnessed it and made it acceptable. They crawled out from under their rock.

They live in a media bubble and have no idea how things like economy or inflation work. They believe everything he says without question.

Z3r0sama2017 | an hour ago

This. As long as it's ok for them to spew their racist, homophobic, xenophobic speech openly and loudly, they will forgive daddy Trump for anything.

likamuka | 2 hours ago

Do not excuse fascists.

ArdenJaguar | 2 hours ago

They’re lumped in there but I believe a larger share were a bunch of scared uneducated poor White people who bought into the “they stole our jobs” BS and the replacement theory crxp. Trump did take the uneducated White male group by a healthy margin.

Famous_Owl_840 | an hour ago

…do you not understand it is government regulation, regulation capture, government mandates creating extreme barriers to entry causing the issues?

It is specifically government and government interference that is allowing this consolidation.

Mr-Dotties-Dad | 3 hours ago

Are we not already??

Olangotang | 2 hours ago

You mean the quicker we just repeat Rome because the wealthy became mentally ill hoarding morons?

underyourtongue | 2 hours ago

*see wall-e

~buy and large

dra_cula | 2 hours ago

> What’s that economics theory that most industries consolidate into 2-3 major corporations?

You might be thinking of an oligopoly, but that is just a tendency and there isn't really a formal economic law saying it always happens.

Enkiktd | 55 minutes ago

All restaurants are Taco Bell.

DarkestNyu | 44 minutes ago

Cyberpunk 2077?

sentientnestcamera | 32 minutes ago

You give the administration far too much credit. Can’t they just be greedy, corrupt, and incompetent, with small businesses going under just a side effect, not a feature?

Hautamaki | 3 hours ago

Covid wasn't the worst virus. It was MAGA all along.

Actual-Package-3164 | 2 hours ago

Virus is spreading from INSIDE THE HOUSE (and senate)!!!

Ghoulius-Caesar | 4 hours ago

Hmmm, this sounds familiar.

AcreTrader, brought to you by the Vice President of the United States of America, JD Vance

Relative_Average758 | 3 hours ago

“Won’t you give us one more chance?”

ynotfoster | 3 hours ago

He sounds like a Sally Struthers commercial.

Sideshift1427 | 4 hours ago

Small businesses really haven't clued into how much the Republicans hate them.

Small Business owners voted for this.

JCNF: 60-40

SBE Council: 50-43

Hispanic Business Council: 58-39

The problem isn't robber barons.

Boozeburger | 4 hours ago

Wasn't this part of the plan of 2025? Republicans voted for this.

Fit-Bus2025 | 4 hours ago

I agree. That's what they want.

braumbles | 3 hours ago

Republicans can't govern, they can only consolidate power to the top.

Slumunistmanifisto | 4 hours ago

Thats been the plan

No, you don't understand, nepotism is evil, much better to have PE own everything

guttertomars | 3 hours ago

They both can be bad, and are

pepperedmaplebacon | 3 hours ago

So they’re just having the day they voted for. Shrug

RiseAboveTheForest | 46 minutes ago

All we can do is vote. Get. Them. Out!

CloudTransit | 3 hours ago

Small business is a useful prop for mega-corporations. Whenever the discussion is about taxes, regulation, and labor rights imagine the bedraggled restauranteur, the punished landscaper, and the overwhelmed trades person.

March those small businesses owners for the cameras, so the monopolists and private equity can escape taxes and regulations. Meanwhile, the IRS will continue to audit the small business owners, because they can’t afford CPA’s and attorneys.

Sideshift1427 | 4 hours ago

Meanwhile the US Chamber of Commerce is touring the country promoting capitalism while small businesses suffer from tariffs and energy prices.

brickrecord | 2 hours ago

Small businesses are just the canary for everything else. I work part time and already feel the squeeze on supplies and patient volume. My husband's hours got cut too.

Kooky-Ad1551 | 4 hours ago

They knew all this was coming, some of them planned for it, but most wanted trump to win, but the tax cuts are pretty sweet for any businesses that survive. They wanted that BBB. Anyway too bad it didn't work out for some. Lots of BKs coming.

dallasalice88 | 4 hours ago

His tax cuts only benefit corporations not small businesses.

Kooky-Ad1551 | 3 hours ago

I wish they had all voted Democrat.

dallasalice88 | 3 hours ago

The small business owners or the corporations? As for my house, we are blue.

davidw223 | 3 hours ago

Both. From my experience, most small business owners are very conservative. They believe they got where they are by pulling up their bootstraps and despise regulation.

madeapizza | 2 hours ago

Incredibly wrong. Bonus depreciation, R&D credits, enhanced expensing, etc

dallasalice88 | an hour ago

Bonus depreciation works if you need to buy equipment. R&D doesn't apply to your normal small business. Enhanced expensing? Again, works for bigger businesses.

We own a residential and agricultural fencing business. Four employees including my husband. That's the kind of small business I'm talking about. Not a mini corporation.

CatLord8 | 4 hours ago

But not the Better Business Bureau

BinaryMagick | 3 hours ago

The ALKs are out of control. To many GMJs, not enough AGL. Without FTI we're all in big trouble.

Kooky-Ad1551 | 3 hours ago

Finally someone says what we were all thinking!

samhouston84 | 2 hours ago

This is true, I am a small business owner and we’re not doing well.

My customers are not doing well. MAGA boomers really fucked everything by their Hate!

Sufficient_Cake_4845 | 2 hours ago

Boomers have sold their businesses and their investments are doing well. They are happy to prioritize their hate above your quality of life.

Drawlingwan | an hour ago

No they haven’t- many simply won’t sell because they believe their business is worth more than it is and now it’s too late - their revenues are declining and buyers can’t get financing. There was another time in the US when all the money just suddenly disappeared. Inflation makes us weak- depression kills us and enslaves us

CapitalElk1169 | 5 minutes ago

Cater to the rich. You're in a k shaped economy; you will only make $ by catering to people with $ to spare.

PicoRascar | 3 hours ago

> 25 years in logistics, never seen anything as bad as this.

Logistics keeps everything running and the layer nobody notices until it breaks. Once it breaks down broadly, sector fails in ways that didn't seem connected.

It's absurd the number of disruptions happening everywhere simultaneously and as the problems get more complex and harder to fix the system that should fix it gets more dysfunctional.

Kooky-Ad1551 | 3 hours ago

I haven't seen any shortages on anything I've needed. Will we see lower inventories and supplies shortly? How long before I can't get my beer, milk, eggs, cereal, lumber and screws for my house and business?

Lazy-Associate-4508 | 3 hours ago

I work at a golf course and our mechanics are having a very hard time getting parts and tires. If they can get them, it takes 10x longer than it used to (4 weeks instead of 3 days) and at a much higher cost. They are paying 30% more for diesel then they were a few months ago and our suppliers are recommending that we order in bulk before the price goes up even more.

The gardener and superintendent can't get certian fertilizers anymore. They just aren't available, at any price.

Our food deliveries now have a hefty fuel surcharge, and multiple items are listed as "not available" each week, which hasn't happened since COVID.

It's happening, slowly but surely.

brilliantminion | 3 hours ago

It’s been a week since diesel hit these highs. Give it time.

naijaboiler | 2 hours ago

logistics failure don't necessary show up as shortages. They often often show up as price increases instead.

Puzzled_Educator_478 | 4 hours ago

Well, Trump doing crazy shit everyone warned him about because it seemed good. This is similar Chairman Mao killing all the birds and causing a famine.

crocus7 | 3 hours ago

I own a small medical transportation company. We have had two of our competitors go out of business in the last six months. The fraud waste and abuse efforts have put extra administrative burden on all of us. Those two competitors were really small and didn’t have the staff/overhead to be able to manage it. The larger companies can manage.

The Medicaid cuts in our state have also hurt us a lot. Then you have fuel, which is killing us as well.

That also doesn’t speak to the impacts on Medicaid members. The transportation cuts have changed the structure of how we get paid resulting in a lot of trips to more rural areas no longer being profitable. We have people who used to ride with us regularly that we can no longer take without losing money and many of them are rationing their healthcare because they don’t have access to transportation.

Loud-Difficulty7860 | 2 hours ago

Get EVs asap they will pay for themselves in fuel savings alone

crocus7 | an hour ago

I’d love to. But I don’t know of any EVs that can have the floor cut for a wheelchair ramp.

Bucephalus970 | an hour ago

Not if the cars they have are paid off

ChadFullStack | 4 hours ago

This isn’t a problem, this is the desired outcome big corpa and republican administration planned all these years. Trump openly made these claims, but seems like the voter base didn’t understand the reality and couldn’t get over Harris.

spuzzumed | an hour ago

I genuinely don't understand why Americans voted to shut down small business. Like... Why is that a popular platform at all? The worship of the ultra-rich is just unsettling.

America is starting to feel like India to me. Instead of being shocked by how a "home of the brave" country would turn their backs on entrepreneurs and small business, it starts to seem normal and I'm starting to lose interest in paying attention (despite being filled with outrage and drama, I just don't CARE about Indian politics)

I'm glad my country (Canada) is being serious about the break-up. we just don't understand Americans anymore

kashibohdi | 2 hours ago

My family business went out after the first round of tariffs. It’s hard out there with all costs going up and consumer demand capping at to low a price to keep thee we doors open

naijaboiler | 2 hours ago

what line of business is that

ClubSoda | an hour ago

the White House

yaholdinhimdean0 | 4 hours ago

The current administration can screw corporate America in any way they choose. Why? Because eventually corporate america will be reimbursed by the current administration while the current administration laughs at us all the way to the bank.

a_library_socialist | 2 hours ago

Wondering if there's gonna be another round of PPP loans - and then blame the inflation on the much smaller wage subsidies.

yaholdinhimdean0 | 2 hours ago

Nothing is off the table with the current administration. Don't forget, the Dems are nearly as bad as the GOP. I fucking despise ALL politicians, regardless of party. Why? Because all are beholden the the almighty dollar.

makemeking706 | 3 hours ago

When you have tens of billions of dollars, you can buy hundreds of millions of industry and be richer than before you started.

You can take that same and give every member of congress a few million to prevent them stopping you and not even notice it's gone.

lqIpI | 4 hours ago

The mismattch of sellers to buyers in the Real Estate market is also well beyond records.

I don't how much redder things could flash, but AI better deliver that massive productivity boom tomorrow or we spin down fast.

justin107d | 3 hours ago

The problem is that if it does create the productivity boom, it is hitting companies in a way that does not create jobs for those laid off. If my specialized administrative role gets made obsolete, I have to find a new career in a crowd of people doing the same thing. Among new grads who are more eager to learn new skills. It is not clear what new AI jobs are materializing to fill the gap or if there will be nearly enough of them.

nefrina | 3 hours ago

there are still significantly more buyers than sellers where i am in the north-east. nothing new built being, most sitting on paid off homes or historically low rates.

ryanfitchca | 3 hours ago

In my texas neighborhood there are several houses that have been up for sale for longer than usual. In stark contrast with how it was several years ago when houses would get put up for sale and be snatched up super quick.

Askol | 2 hours ago

Yep, I'd be considering a new house, but its just not feasible when my current mortgage is 3.125% - the same mortgage would cost me and extra $2K/month today!

nefrina | an hour ago

hah, i had the exact same mortgage rate as you at exactly 3.125, what are the odds lol. house is paid off now but i guess i'm just trapped here in this 1k sq ft starter home forever. meanwhile i have friends that are buying & selling and thinking nothing of starting another 30 year fresh at 40+ with 7%, gross.

AdLatter3755 | 2 hours ago

Small businesses were often the excuse to not do things like raise the minimum wage and strengthen labor laws. The ven diagram of small business owners and maga voters is a damn near perfect circle. Just like farmers and the regular non maga pilled person is exhausted with the bullshit. Sorry to the non maga business owners. MAGA business owners can join with maga farmers in the Find out phase

kent_eh | 52 minutes ago

Any bets who the fellow citizens of his state voted for in the last 3 presidential elections?

 

It's North Carolina, we all know I'm not going to get any takers on that bet.

This is yet another example of the predictable results of tribal voting.

Naive_Review7725 | 51 minutes ago

there is a youtuber called Vaush who says Trump administration wants something like Russia in 90s post URSS end: oligarchs buying every businees for cheap prices. I think this was a conspiracy theory until recent days

Bastillerion | 2 hours ago

Not a huge surprise that they seemed to be better off during COVID. During COVID, the Fed printed $5 trillion and Congress handed it out, with more than a trillion going to rich people who didn't need it.

That's the problem with printing and borrowing money. It doesn't fix the underlying structural problems, it just delays them a little bit.

Small business owner here and it’s fucking suck with this economy. Everything becomes way more expensive, supplies went up, the cost of labor went up, rent is substantially more expensive, licensing costs are more expensive as well. Even a case of fucking bottled water went up at Samsclub this morning and I had no choice but to buy it. I’m in service industry where profit margins are usually low. Now it’s getting fucking smaller to the point of doesnt make sense for me anymore.

I’m stressed out just to keep the business staying afloat. My staff are all burnt out and stressed out as well and they are leaving just because they couldn’t earn enough to keep up with the daily expenses.

This K-shaped economy is so stupid. Restaurants are packed, shopping malls are packed and it gives a false sense of economic security. People are struggling and not making enough to keep up with the raising cost of living. Oh and dont let me talk the about the huge AI bubble with the stock market, once it crashes, all hell will breaks loose

Sittingonalog1960 | 18 minutes ago

The cost of labour went up but your staff didn’t earn enough to keep up with daily expenses and left.

Don’t you mean you refused to pay a living wage?

You sound like you never run a business before.

Sittingonalog1960 | 7 minutes ago

And, you worked then haggard and still didn’t pay them a living wage

Lol. I think i don’t need to argue with some random people on the internet who talk about “living wage” while not understanding how a business works. Good day then.

Big_Ad_8264 | an hour ago

Sleep in the bed you made. If you are upset about the current situation and you are in a red state, you have no one to blame but yourself and you deserve to lose it all.

No bailouts for stupid decisions. Your farm will be one a data center.. enjoy.

harveytent | 13 minutes ago

End the war, end the tariffs, redo free trade. Not exactly hard to fix but Trump has billions and doesn’t understand how people could struggle with stuff: he thinks America is so great everyone is earning a million a year.

Mighty_Pen_1337 | 3 hours ago

I'm sure democrats will fix it. More bailouts for the banks and other corporations, right? Or maybe we finally realize voting is broken. The elite know the jig is almost up. Once they've stolen the remaining 10% or so of capital, they'll retreat to their newly built luxury bunkers to wait out their orchestrated crisis.

Icy-Grab-5722 | 3 hours ago

What a drag. Not much fun for the little guy. You know that the orange does not give a sheet about that. You must sacrifice for the wealthies don't you know.