Tag Archives: Small businesses

“We’re Getting Creamed” – NYC Small Business Owners Struggle To Confront Surge In Shoplifting, by Tyler Durden

Posted on March 5, 2022 | Leave a comment

It’s heartbreaking and infuriating when legitimate small businesses can’t survive because theft has essentially been legalized. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

New York City’s struggling small businesses are dealing with one of the worst spikes in retail theft rates in recent memory. And owners aren’t sure whether Mayor Eric Adams’ decision to roll back certain COVID restrictions will improve the situation, or make it worse.

The owner of a couple of downtown boutiques said she has never felt “more exhausted” trying to protect her businesses from emboldened shoplifters and criminal crews working small retail businesses.

Someone shattered the front door overnight and ripped out the cash drawer. The new security gates cost $2,300. The streets became quieter after four neighboring businesses closed permanently during the pandemic, emboldening shoplifters. Two security guards quit.

For Deborah Koenigsberger, who has worked in retail for three decades, keeping her two clothing stores open in Manhattan’s Flatiron neighborhood has never felt so exhausting.

“As small businesses, we are getting creamed right now in so many ways,” Ms. Koenigsberger said. “I might as well leave my store door open and say, ‘Help yourselves.”

According to data from the NYT, shoplifting complaints are up 16% over the past year, while arrests have fallen.

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Posted in Business, Crime, Government, Horseshit, Politics, Propaganda

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Is The Small Business Sector Being Deliberately Targeted for Destruction? by Brandon Smith

Posted on October 9, 2021 | 1 comment

Small business owners are not exactly a core Democratic constituency, while the large corporations they compete with have become big Democratic backers. From Brandon Smith at theburningplatform.com:

Is The Small Business Sector Being Deliberately Targeted for Destruction?

The past 18 months have not been kind to small businesses. If you were unfortunate enough to live in a blue state during the onset of the covid lockdowns and you own a brick-and-mortar business then you have probably spent a large part of that 18 months closed, or struggling to stay open with a skeleton crew of employees. If you did manage to get a PPP loan from the government during shutdown you are now realizing that the 24-week grace period is running out and you will probably have to pay most if not all of that money back soon. Many who tried to get a PPP loan failed because the money was quickly chewed up by major corporations instead of being reserved for small businesses.

And this isn’t even the beginning of the list of troubles for small companies. I have to say, unless a large part of your business is handled online your chances of staying solvent are slim. This is not the fault of most business owners, though, it is a consequence of artificially created conditions and restrictions.

What do I mean by this? Well let’s look at some factors that many people might not be aware of…

Here’s why small businesses are suffering

For example, both state and federal governments have been offering some level of covid unemployment stimulus. In the case of federal programs this could amount to $300 extra a week on top of a person’s existing unemployment checks, even more if their state has a separate program. This has created a massive drought in the employee pool. No one wants to work when they can stay home, do nothing and make more money than they ever were before the pandemic. The reality is that there are jobs everywhere right now, but almost no one is applying.

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Posted in Business, Collapse, Government, Labor, Politics, Taxes

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It’s Not “Just Property”: How Looting Destroys Lives and Low-Income Neighborhoods, by Ryan McMaken

Posted on September 4, 2020 | Leave a comment

One of the obscenities peddled by the rioters is that it’s okay to loot and destroy businesses because looting is actually reparations. By that rationale anyone can take anything from anyone, including from the looters (almost all of whom, on a global scale, rank in the top 10 or 20 percent of income and wealth) themselves. From Ryan McMaken at mises.org:

It’s now become fashionable on the left to defend looting as a means of redistributing wealth from allegedly unworthy business owners to the more deserving looters themselves.

“It’s just property!” is the refrain, with the implication being that property owners should not defend their property with coercive means—such as calling in the police or using privately owned weapons against looters.1

This is the philosophy behind a recent declaration from a Black Lives Matter organizer. As the New York Post reported on August 11:

“I don’t care if somebody decides to loot a Gucci’s or a Macy’s or a Nike because that makes sure that that person eats. That makes sure that that person has clothes,” [BLM organizer] Ariel Atkins said at a rally outside the South Loop police station Monday, local outlets reported….“That’s a reparation,” Atkins said.

A more full apologia for looting now comes in the form of a new book titled In Defense of Looting by Vicky Osterweil, who identifies herself as “a writer, editor, and agitator based in Philadelphia.”

In an interview with National Public Radio, Osterweil states:

When I use the word looting, I mean the mass expropriation of property, mass shoplifting during a moment of upheaval or riot….

It tends to be an attack on a business, a commercial space, maybe a government building—taking those things that would otherwise be commodified and controlled and sharing them for free.

Osterweil then goes on to assert that looting is basically a poverty relief program and that it liberates the looters from having to work for a living:

It gets people what they need for free immediately, which means that they are capable of living and reproducing their lives without having to rely on jobs or a wage.

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Posted in Capitalism, Civil Liberties, Collapse, Crime, Government

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