It's like everybody forgot that their neighbour's job depend on them.
We're repeating the same pattern with online shopping, malls and stores everywhere are closing because of our collective actions, we're not losing them like I lost my keys.
A huge part of that is rents. Basically, a store that owns their property outright or even on mortgage has far less worries when business turns down during a crisis. Take Covid - a year or two, depending on where you were, in more or less lockdown conditions.
A store that was owner-owned? No big deal. Staff was paid for by government assistance, not much ongoing cost for the building. Owned but mortgaged? Cut a deal with the bank, no bank wants to go through a 2007ff event again and they also got assistance for loans. But a store that was rented? Yeetie yeetie. Commercial renters have zero protections anywhere, and landlords are nonforgiving - especially when they are backed by REITs and other investment vehicles.
Recent history is filled with examples of investment funds that behave like vultures - seek out a company that has sizable owned real estate, buy stocks, force the management to sell off the real estate in a heavily biased sale-and-lease-back maneuver, put the acquisition debt on the company's ledgers, sell off the real estate and let the husk of the company wither.
And this is becasue huge international investors still own sites like malls and retail centers and still remember the massive rents they used to command for those units.
The bubble will burst when enough sites are written off, and IMO rents will come back down to a reasonable level in a decade or 2.
Oh no. It's US pension funds that own a lot of real estate, and these will continue to get bailed out or protected by the government.
The decision of the US to back pensions on the stonk market has insane, crippling side effects not just on their economy but also on the rest of the world.
Free trade does result in the best prices but it has other, negative effects, and it is when we think as policy makers -- as citizens, not consumers or business owners -- that we are accountable for those effects.
Hmm, I don’t like the sound of that.
Our political/ruling class wanted more of the pie for themselves, dropped the trade barriers protecting American industry, and gorged themselves on the arbitrage as manufacturing flowed to our chief geopolitcal rival, who was quite happy to accept such a generous gift.
We also have many US manufacturers moving sourcing their subcomponents from overseas to save a few cents per unit, there's no way to prevent that, nobody is going to check the BOM from everything they ever buy.
I think collective behavior is a large component but it is not quite right to declare it as the primary driver.
For example, I get a 40inch TV instead of a 65 inch or I buy a set of American made screwdrivers but then I can't get a bottle of Vodka.
Most people have their basic needs met. They just want as much as possible for their money even if it harms other Americans. At the same time, if they happen to work at a factory making extension cords, they'll want people to buy their US made cords to protect their job.
Because most people are selfish when it comes to people who aren't family or friends.
Really the mom and pop store was set to die in the US because of car culture. You'll pay a bit more to walk to the closest store, but if you're already driving there is very little cost in driving to a store a little farther is almost nothing.
Are you talking about the small mom-n-pop shops that are only open when most people are at work, while with online shopping you can do it any time 24/7? The same mom-n-pop shops that refused to take returns, and had poor selection and would take weeks to order something for you, at a ridiculous price?
There are a lot of really good reasons online shopping has put so many stores out of business.
The college educated white collar professionals who are grossly over-represented in policy discourse?
Middle america, the formerly industrial northeast and the former bulk industry west have been complaining about this shit policy for over a generation.
Implicitly shuttering our manufacturing and heavy industry by subjecting it to policy that we knew would make it increasingly noncompetitive at the margin and would prevent continuing investment was a macro/federal level economic policy choice that was actively pursued for approx 50yr.
This is an American quality where a person who works in a factory that makes extension cords and needs their job to survive would buy the cheaper lamp even though it's made in China.
Most people aren't willing to make financial sacrifices to help people they don't know EVEN if they might be affected by another person having the same belief.
There used to be other times and more honorable businessmen. Then came the Dodge Brothers who managed to get a court judgement asserting shareholder supremacy over long term interests [1].
The only thing I never understood is how in god's name Amazon got away with reinvesting profits and never dishing out to shareholders for decades.
The 1930s through 1960s (i.e. industrialization had matured but you can't construe it as "modern" business) are chock full of corporate raiders, acquisitions with nearly monopolistic goals, cartels, etc.
Because in the US that's the case because people give a shit about cost - you could make financial sacrifices to help your community by buying local...but your costs of living are skyrocketing every year, the costs of your family are increasing, and the difference between buying from BigCorp (Walmart, Amazon) and from your local store (which is 1.3-1.7x the price vs BigCorp) adds up.
Sad but it's true.