We also have a small business economy that runs on a shoestring. Businesses are living paycheck to paycheck like an 18 year old who just moved out on their own. Now some are folding after a single month of shutdown. Margins have become incredibly thin, as people obsess over saving a few dollars on made-in-China crap, or forcing family businesses to bid against illegal aliens and outsourced employees for their projects. It's impacting virtually every segment of our economy.
I’m checking labels and buying Made in America every chance I get.
And I have not slowed my spending down. What I can’t find in the stores, I will order online.
A lot of this problem is from DEBT! It’s just too easy to go into DEBT! Most lending rates are cheap, and a loan is convenient, and in some cases necessary nowadays, for making payroll, and not only the small businesses, but their landlords are in DEBT.
When some major black swan crisis like this pandemic happens, and so many people get idled, suddenly lots of people cannot pay off debt, the bankruptcy courts will eventually get clogged, and our economy is at risk of collapse, all because of all the damned individual, business and government DEBT!
Perhaps when this crap is over, we should disband the Fed (they’re useful, but probably not necessary) and go back to some solid, metals-based standard for money, in order to make it MORE DIFFICULT for so man people to GO INTO DEBT!