It's a nightmare, but how long can government continue to support businesses?

[RubyandBen]

It so concerning. Businesses literally on the brink with no end in site and nothing but bad news. How long do people think there will be support to try to keep them viable?

Maybe as long as Germany and France?

So two years

Many of these businesses were viable prior to restrictions and would be without them. Government should be providing support until restrictions are lifted. I have a business affected by restrictions, ongoing. I have received no help or support as self employed, started in 2018 & premises at home. In February I was looking at my best year for bookings and it’s October and had nothing not because my business isn’t viable but the government have placed restrictions.

The government are going to leave many high and dry, many already have been. The government are trying to impose restrictions in the guise of doing something so some businesses can operate in a vastly reduced capacity which means they don’t have to be held responsible for providing financial support.

Some businesses are booming. Supermarkets have reported record profits. Not all businesses are doom and gloom and the taxes from those who are thriving will support those which are suffering. Supporting businesses isn't a charitable act - by propping up the businesses that would fail without such help, but which will be viable again once we are out the other side, we can prevent an utterly disastrous recession. The economy is a cycle that either reinforces itself upwards or downwards, magnifying any trend until something happens to reverse it. If people lose jobs, and have to stop spending, then more people lose their jobs and it all gets worse, and tax revenues plummet so the Government has even fewer options for helping. If people have confidence that they are going to be OK financially then they keep spending, the economy keeps going and so tax revenues stay up, and jobs stay secure. It is important not to look too closely at the surface on which we are dancing, it is people's belief in the idea that we can get through this that will get us through this.

A lot of businesses have had no support at all and some have had support yet continued at almost normal levels. They need to focus support.

... not for as long as they should, that is clear. I think by Summer a lot of business will have disappeared.

The future is grim.

I can't get my head around it all.

Are a lot of people actually going to lose their homes, will we see a surge in people needing to go into council housing?

How tight will purse strings be on near future public services, how frozen wage rises for nurses, cops, binmen?

Will farmers lose subsidies, will research grants dry up, will inflation get rampant if those things don't happen. Will the Navy lose aircraft carriers, maybe Trident will get cancelled. Hs2 need an extra 15 yrs to be built. I just don't know.

They can’t keep propping up businesses. They want people to diversify. Lots of innovative businesses were born out of a recession - air B and B and uber.

It’s shit that people will lose their businesses, but there is also no point to keep ploughing funds into businesses that may not be viable for a couple of years.

I think some private landlords will be looking to sell some of their properties due to the changing laws on evictions.

Will farmers lose subsidies

This was happening before C0vid.

Brexit is a shitshow.

I think there's a lot of business that the government just aren't prepared to subsidise for that long and aren't being honest about it. How can any of these hospitality businesses be making enough to pay rent, rates and wages with such reduced capacity when they were hardly making anything before.

We're in for a really rocky economic ride. As someone else upthread said though there are winners & losers. It's not all negative.

@YeOldeTrout

I can't get my head around it all.

Are a lot of people actually going to lose their homes, will we see a surge in people needing to go into council housing?

How tight will purse strings be on near future public services, how frozen wage rises for nurses, cops, binmen?

Will farmers lose subsidies, will research grants dry up, will inflation get rampant if those things don't happen. Will the Navy lose aircraft carriers, maybe Trident will get cancelled. Hs2 need an extra 15 yrs to be built. I just don't know.

I think the government will need to give some kind of mortgage support to people and reduce the wait time for Mortgage interest support to kick in or they are going to be faced with an awful lot of people losing their homes. They also need to look at more support for charities who are losing huge amounts of fund raising revenue at a time when they are facing huge increased demand for their services. They seem to have been forgotten yet are having to let large numbers of very skilled paid employees go, whilst also losing volunteers.

It really is an utter mess

A quote I recently heard:

Enjoy covid because the future is going to be hell

Enjoy covid because the future is going to be hell
Scary thought

If the government can afford an extra 4% pay rise for themselves this year and to bloat the number of state paid members of the House of Lords to over 800 unnecessary people (Boris added 30+ of his mates this year), then the economy must be very healthy! Nothing to worry about people.

Pubs, beauty salons, concerts, theatre, restaurants, mass public transport, tourism, eye lash extensions: there is normally huge demand for all of these. They are perfectly viable business models in absence of virus controls. I haven't a clue what "innovative" business models could absorb the unemployment generated by closing all those down in near future.

There's only so much Netflix, Zoom & supermarket products the economy can consume. Especially if almost everyone is feeling skint.

the arts seem to be in trouble

theatres, even film making, tv productions

For as long as is necessary if it stops the breakdown of society.

It took a couple of generations to pay off the debts from WW2 - we were still paying off the debts racked up then until recently. We only stopped paying the debts incurred from the 1833 abolition of slavery act in 2015, nearly 200 years later.

Just do the same with Covid debt bonds, pay it all back over a couple of hundred years.

@sally067

For as long as is necessary if it stops the breakdown of society.

It took a couple of generations to pay off the debts from WW2 - we were still paying off the debts racked up then until recently. We only stopped paying the debts incurred from the 1833 abolition of slavery act in 2015, nearly 200 years later.

Just do the same with Covid debt bonds, pay it all back over a couple of hundred years.

This its not like they can default on the debt. The only concern is inflation but with negative interest rates that is unlikely. We are not Zimbabwe there is still oil in the machine.

@LaurieFairyCake

Maybe as long as Germany and France?

So two years

This was going to be my answer too. The government will say they can't but what they mean is they don't choose to.