They didn’t even try to hide it: lockdowns helped the big guys and killed the little guys. From Jeffrey A. Tucker at brownstone.org:
Among the many grim memories from the depths of lockdowns were boarded up local shops and long lines outside the big-box stores like WalMart, Kroger, Whole Foods, and Home Depot. For very strange reasons, small business was universally declared to be nonessential whereas the big chains were deemed essential.
This amounted to a massive industrial subsidy to large companies, which emerged from the pandemic period richer and more bloated than ever. Meanwhile, millions of small businesses were utterly wrecked.
Nearly every day, my inbox fills with tragic stories of family businesses that were just getting going when the lockdowns came and destroyed everything. Not enough of these stories were ever told. Major media were not interested.
The government loans (PPP), later mostly forgiven, could not possibly make up the difference for the losses from old-fashioned revenue. In addition, their supply chains were wrecked because they were either starved for business or gobbled up by the large companies. There are no firm numbers but it is possible 25-40 percent of small businesses closed permanently. Dreams were shattered and millions of jobs were disrupted or destroyed.
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