The health of small business under the vindictive and covid-denying Trump mis-administration is dire. Click to Enlarge.
Census Bureau data from its latest weekly pulse survey on small businesses are bleak. The survey came out just before Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin astounded the financial world last Friday by saying he would not extend after year end the Federal Reserve backing of corporate credit and the Main Street and municipal lending programs. Mnuchin asked for the Fed to return the roughly $455 billion of unused capacity to the Treasury. Mnuchin is likely trying to stop President elect Biden’s next Treasury secretary extending relief to state and local governments. It will make it harder for small businesses to borrow. (see AI – Federal Reserve President on Do Nothing Republicans – The Economy Goes Where The Virus Goes)
The Federal Reserve – in what AutoInformed says is the latest example of the ugly, vindictive politics of the defeated at the ballot box, impeached and lame-duck Trump – responded with a statement claiming it “would prefer that the full suite of emergency facilities established during the corona-virus pandemic continue to serve their important role as a backstop for our still-strained and vulnerable economy.” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said earlier in the week there was a need for the programs to continue.
Based on responses collected by Census, which in this case was not trying to prevent people from voting, during a survey November 9 through November 15:
- 46.7% of U.S. small businesses believe more than 6 months of time will pass before their business returns to its normal level of operations
- 74.1% of U.S. small businesses have requested financial assistance from the Paycheck Protection Program since March 13, 2020
- 26.4% of U.S. small businesses have experienced domestic supplier delays in the last week
- 63.2% of U.S. educational services businesses have experienced an increase in the use of online platforms to offer goods or services
- 48.5% of U.S. retail trade businesses have experienced domestic supplier delays in the last week
- 37.3% of small businesses in the Jacksonville, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area have experienced little or no effect from the corona-virus pandemic
- 60.3% of U.S. small businesses have experienced no change in operating revenues in the last week (from already depressed levels – editor)
- 74.1% of U.S. small businesses have experienced a large or moderate negative effect from the COVID-19 pandemic
Today’s column is about the remarkably destructive decision by Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s treasury secretary, to cut off lending programs that helped avert a serious financial crisis last spring and could all too easily be needed again if the corona virus goes as wild as we fear after Thanksgiving. As I argued, it’s hard to see Mnuchin’s action as anything other than vandalism — trashing the economy, and the nation, on the way out.
The thing is, this sort of irresponsibility is fairly common — in economically and politically backward nations. And maybe that’s what America has become…
What I didn’t see coming was the political side. It’s not just that America has been suffering from Third World-type economic crises. We’ve also been sliding into banana-republic politics, becoming the kind of country in which a president can refuse to acknowledge a clear election defeat — and be backed by most of his party….