$350 billion allocated by Washington to help small businesses did not reach the addressee.
This was stated by an entrepreneur from New York, Andres Diaz in a publication for the “The Guardian” edition.
Diaz owns a restaurant with 39 people. According to him, when the federal government allocated $350 billion to help small businesses, he immediately contacted the bank and filed an application. The American noted that state support in the form of loans was distributed through the three largest US banks: Bank of America, Citibank and JPMorgan Chase. Diaz was a client of the latter.
“I was very happy that I chose a large, well-known bank to store my finances, especially now that it was responsible for processing my loan application. At home [in Colombia] I was deceived many times by local banks, so when I moved here I chose Chase because I thought: I can trust these guys. At least I thought so”, – he said.
For a long time, the bank did not contact the restaurateur and did not even respond to his letters. When all the papers were prepared, it turned out that the money allocated by the authorities had already ended. According to Diaz, the bank sent him a letter in which it said: “The Small Business Administration spent all the funds of the first stage of the Salary Protection Program”.
“Even worse, I found that large restaurant chains such as Shake Shack, Potbelly Sandwich and the Ruth’s Hospitality Group, which employ thousands of people, received tens of millions of dollars in federal money. Guess who gave them a loan? Yes, JPMorgan Chase”, – Diaz emphasizes.
Thus, “megasets” received millions of dollars, and the small business, which together also provides millions of people with work, was left with nothing. Diaz drew attention to the fact that state support went to companies that could cope with the crisis by their own means.