Why small businesses need to open back up NOW!
COVID attacks everything indiscriminately ..
It was always a given that the virus epidemic would wreak havoc and damage every sector of our economy, but few would associate the severity of the damage caused with small and medium sized enterprises. Certainly the blow to the economy can be felt with the largest corporations in some of the largest industries shutting down for many months, but the fabric of our economy isn't just about those "too big to fall" companies. The effects of the epidemic are broad and sweeping, but it's influence varies greatly. While large companies have more to lose, they are also in a better position to "ride it out."
Small businesses feel the most threatened
Small businesses are being destroyed left right and centre. This happened when we went from a proposed 2 week "flatten the curve" approach -which we could have easily bounced back from- to a sustained 3+ month "we must prevent all deaths" approach with the typical government meddling in things they know nothing about - running businesses. Their meddling in the running of business has, and will continue to permanently destroy jobs and prevent a true recovery.
The mega corps are cutting back and laying off a few employees, cancelling some contractor jobs. They will continue to lay low and reduce their investment into new businesses (job creation) until a few years later where things are hopefully back to normal. Most of these corporations with their large number of well paid staff, secure jobs, and great benefits will likely survive. The ones that don't were probably in trouble anyway.
But it is the small businesses that will suffer the most. The businesses which run on marginal cash flows and have debts that they cannot avoid. They will have no other options other than to close their business for good when all the cash is gone.
Small businesses are the true job creation factories in the US
It is the small businesses that feed up the ladder into the big businesses. Every large corporation started off as a small business. It is the small businesses that foster the great ideas, and where the best ones can flourish. Make no mistake about it, small businesses are the true job creators in the economy. Corporations are great at optimising great ideas on a large scale, and while some do create new businesses and more jobs, others die out and go bankrupt due to incompetency or hanging on to products or business models that no longer work.
Net job generators in the US are the small businesses, run by hard working people with the dreams and the drive and courage to turn them into reality. They need to open up now, and ignore the meddling little dictators that are trying to control them and tell them who can and cannot open, and when they open, how many customers they can serve.
Large corporations have the resources and money in the bank to find ways to make work safer from the virus. But small businesses are much more agile and therefore capable of making quick changes. This enables them to run safely, but also allows the people to exercise their individual rights to decide whether to isolate themselves, or go back out into the world.
There are a loud segment of society that say people are too stupid to protect themselves or their customers. These people are not familiar with the positive side of human ingenuity and creativity. If they think the government needs to continue stamping their feet of authority to keep the ignorant people "safe," then they don't understand the value of individual liberty, creativity, and positive driving force it creates.