OT - Restraunt Restrictions

Ozzie_Isaac

If government mandates/regulations/restrictions force a non-essential business to close, then the government should provide money to the business to cover structured costs that do not go away.  Costs like mortgage, property tax, interest on loans.

The businesses should not get rich, but they should not go bankrupt either.  Since the closure is in the public interest this would be an appropriate use of tax dollars.

What should not happen is the government gives a bunch of money to banks to cover their loses from mortgage defaults, and then the bank also gets to foreclose on the property at the end of the mess.  If the business gets the help, they pay the mortgage, interest, and taxes and then banks do not need saving.  Everything goes on like before.  Trickle up.

Just a thought.

Ozzie_Isaac

Picture to confuse hair-trigger buffalo.

Photo Egg

I like both your posts

lousubcap

A solid position right there @Ozzie_Isaac.  No chance of happening, which is sad.  

johnnyp

Your hometown restaurant doesn't substantially contribute to anyone's re-election campaign.

Meanwhile the Fat Cats....

StillH2OEgger

Well said @Ozzie_Isaac. I get frustrated when I hear about the possibility of additional stimulus checks presumably going out to everyone regardless of need. I understand the point of a stimulus, but that money would be better used to prop up struggling businesses and families that clearly need them (as a result of Covid) more than those whose incomes have not been negatively impacted by the pandemic. Having said that, I realize it's more difficult to execute distribution like that and if politicians are trying to buy votes they want to bribe as many as possible. I hate to see hard-working small businesses struggling because of something that could have been better managed from the start.

kl8ton

As I side note, I haven't felt too bad that some of the chains that were struggling pre-COVID finally met their demise.  

JohnEggGio

@Ozzie_Isaac - with respect to your first post, so far, that is what has happened, but of course the PPP money wasn't/isn't enough to get all businesses through this.  Thus far, banks have not gotten a dime of any relief funding, in fact banks are specifically barred from getting PPP.  Instead, banks have been saddled with the substantial burden of booking and managing the many, many PPP loans, and evaluating them for forgiveness.  Sure there are some upfront fees and 1% interest, but it is not a moneymaker for most banks.

Ozzie_Isaac

JohnEggGio said:

@Ozzie_Isaac - with respect to your first post, so far, that is what has happened, but of course the PPP money wasn't/isn't enough to get all businesses through this.  Thus far, banks have not gotten a dime of any relief funding, in fact banks are specifically barred from getting PPP.  Instead, banks have been saddled with the substantial burden of booking and managing the many, many PPP loans, and evaluating them for forgiveness.  Sure there are some upfront fees and 1% interest, but it is not a moneymaker for most banks.

The story is a bit more muddy than that.  My wife owns her own business.  In the beginning there were multiple different loan types and requirements.  The PPP required the majority of payments to go to employees and not fixed costs like mortgages, taxes, and interest on loans.  This helped keep employees but did nothing for other business costs.

There was also the EIDL and SBA loans.  This had less restrictions and were initially supposed to be $10k in 3 days.  2 months later no loans had been issued and then they got reduced to $1k.  Still no money was actually sent out.

In the end all my wife received was hard credit hits and no money.  Large companies and their teams of lawyers received the money.  PPP forgiveness was very risky because they did not forgive the loans till just a few days ago, and even then things are still not totally clear how and when.

Banks are getting help from monetary easing, and will be bailed out again if they need it. Meanwhile small businesses did not receive money for their fixed costs.  They had payments deferred but not forgiven.

JohnEggGio

@Ozzie_Isaac as your wife experienced, the process kept evolving.  In the end I think the hurdle to get forgiveness was reduced to 60% salaries over 24 weeks.  There's talk of another round.  Hope it helps.

northGAcock

Ozzie_Isaac said:

If government mandates/regulations/restrictions force a non-essential business to close, then the government should provide money to the business to cover structured costs that do not go away.  Costs like mortgage, property tax, interest on loans.

The businesses should not get rich, but they should not go bankrupt either.  Since the closure is in the public interest this would be an appropriate use of tax dollars.

What should not happen is the government gives a bunch of money to banks to cover their loses from mortgage defaults, and then the bank also gets to foreclose on the property at the end of the mess.  If the business gets the help, they pay the mortgage, interest, and taxes and then banks do not need saving.  Everything goes on like before.  Trickle up.

Just a thought.

You’ll need to run that one by me again. 

ColbyLang

As a small business owner and someone in food manufacturing, I appreciate and sympathize with you @Ozzie_Isaac. We’ve lost customers who have been in business since the 60’s due to this. Our gross sales will be down 7 figures easily. We got PPP, it didn’t help all that much. We have started finally being able to make payments on the line of credit we took just to stay afloat until the PPP kicked in. I’m ghastly afraid of what might happen in less than 2 weeks......

alaskanassasin

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'

Ronald Reagan

40th president of US (1911 - 2004)

Ozzie_Isaac

northGAcock said:

Ozzie_Isaac said:

If government mandates/regulations/restrictions force a non-essential business to close, then the government should provide money to the business to cover structured costs that do not go away.  Costs like mortgage, property tax, interest on loans.

The businesses should not get rich, but they should not go bankrupt either.  Since the closure is in the public interest this would be an appropriate use of tax dollars.

What should not happen is the government gives a bunch of money to banks to cover their loses from mortgage defaults, and then the bank also gets to foreclose on the property at the end of the mess.  If the business gets the help, they pay the mortgage, interest, and taxes and then banks do not need saving.  Everything goes on like before.  Trickle up.

Just a thought.

You’ll need to run that one by me again. 

TL:DR version.  If Government closes your business for the common good, then they should pay the unavoidable fixed costs for the business. 

(Reasons why money should go directly to business instead of lending institutions, but that makes this too long)

JNDATHP

And don’t forget that any PPP funds forgiven mean that the expenses that were paid by the forgiven funds are disallowed as deductions per the IRS. 

paqman

I bet that what you are proposing would work if billionaires paid their fair share of taxes like us lowly common people do 🤷‍♂️

JonWesson

help me understand.   you pleading for wife to get taxpayers money.    you say recent she just buy new tacoma for son not yet legal for driving.  sounds she not needing a rescue.

paqman

JonWesson said:

help me understand.   you pleading for wife to get taxpayers money.    you say recent she just buy new tacoma for son not yet legal for driving.  sounds she not needing a rescue.

The very goal of government help is to keep the economy going... @Ozzie_Isaac is simply proposing a way he feels the money being distributed would be used more effectively.

Programs here in Canada are not perfect either but it allowed to get the money out quickly to the people who needed it.  Some people who did not need the money also got some of it but it was a compromise to keep the administration cost down and get the money out quickly.