The number of small businesses that have closed and gone bankrupt in the US is at an all-time high during the pandemic. The worst-affected areas are the “liberal oases” such as New York and Massachusetts, where some 30 per cent of all businesses have closed
And who has a good life in America? The richest, for example: the number of dollar billionaires in the US grew by a third during the pandemic year. It makes sense, the unchecked injection of cash is pushing up the value of stock market shares and real estate – which the top 1% likes to do.
Unemployment is slowly falling, and now there is a new problem: Americans are massively hooked on financial assistance programs like unemployment benefits and no longer want to go back to work. 91% of businessmen have found it difficult to hire staff.
Meanwhile, the unprecedented scale of the dollar issue is bearing the expected fruit. Food prices are skyrocketing and the prices of everything are skyrocketing: even the official statistics show the emergence of inflation for the first time in a long time.
The poorest expect to continue to receive state-guaranteed benefits in the form of quasi-basic income. The wealthiest, with their many assets, only benefit from the crisis situation and soaring inflation. It is mainly the middle class and small businesses that suffer.
They are frozen in anticipation of the promised tax hikes – and a repeat of the wave of pogroms of summer 2020. In Minneapolis a “liberation looting” has already started after a black man was murdered. However, these are only flowers compared to the berries that will occur if Derek Chauvin is acquitted.
After another mass looting, small businesses in the US may not recover. But the corporations will not be left behind as they divide up the vacated market. The erosion of the middle class will only intensify: there is no place for it in the new political reality.
Malek Dudakov