Stimulus intended to help coronavirus-ravaged small businesses instead rewarding hedge funds, brokerages
Not a bit surprised that these assholes found a way to steal money from Main Street!
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
When the chief executive of a midsized bank was briefed on the status of small-business loans being made under the federal government's coronavirus stimulus plan, he nearly hit the roof.
The bank was receiving applications not just from those barely solvent mom-and-pop businesses like restaurants , salons and family-run factories shuttered amid the nationwide pandemic shutdown that the legislation was supposed to help.
Flowing into his system were applications from businesses no one would consider small, or even barely solvent: Midsized hedge funds, brokerage businesses, small law firms, all outfits that are making money, much of it through fee income, and many operating remotely almost as if nothing had changed.
How could this be? What the banker discovered was that with less than 500 employees , financial firms and other high-end businesses are technically qualified for low-interest federally guaranteed loans under the broad parameters of the government's Payroll Protection Program (PPP).
And many were sending applications to his bank for the cash, as much as $10 million in the form of a forgivable loan, even if these weren't the types of small businesses Washington was looking to aid.
Even worse, the hedge funds and brokerage businesses were in effect taking money that should be earmarked for businesses that can barely survive in a time of social distancing and quarantines.
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Not saying they would deserve it--but they deserve it!
I can almost hear the lame-ass excuses being thought up even now to deflect the much deserved criticism they will be getting for this shit!
This shouldn't shock anyone. Total FUBAR
Stephanie Ruhle of NBC is a financial news reporter as well as an MSNBC show host. In the past few days she has been talking a lot about abuse of these small business loans. Say a rich person owns a real nice yacht. Because they dont use the yacht 52 weeks a year, they rent it out occasionally during the year, including the services of the crew. That rich person is a "small business" and eligible for the loan. He likely has a relationship with a bank that helped him to the front of the list.
Greed is not good.
What really pisses me off is the fact that so many small businesses and individuals did and are doing all they can to help and support our front line workers. From the small glove manufacturer in Church Rock AZ working 24/7 and sending out their glove and not demanding payment upfront. The small tribal community college in MI answering the call and making 3,000 face shields for the front line workers. The Vietnamese donating all their supplies from the beauty shops to health care workers and then sewing masks for the workers. The thousands of citizens making masks at home for health care workers. The guy that owns some Subway Sandwich shops donating 5,000 subways to the hospital workers. The list goes on and on.
This is the true American spirit not these POS on Wall Street using the money that should be going to small businesses for their own use.
Fuck the Wall Street assholes.
"Financiers" will never care about America. They care about how much money they can skim off the US economy. If hedge funds did not exist the world would be no different, for the worse, at all.
Do you think that small business loans to prevent these places from going under were intended for hedge funds or rich yacht owners?
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As another small business owner, everyone works hard and wants a good return. But this money was supposed to help the employees of small businesses. The mom and pop stores, independent restaurants, etc. It was not supposed to go to multi million-dollar businesses. And now the gov wants to give out more money because this was such a mess. I thought that fiscal conservatism was part of the Republican party platform. What happened?
Another one of those things where Pelosi had to pass it before we found out what’s in it.
Dean,
The bill was bi-partisan. It was just as much Mitch McConnell as it was Pelosi.
Great article CK! I wish I could vote it up twice.
When they strip away provisions for oversight this was expected.
One of the multi-million dollar corporations returned $10 million.
I'm sure it was just a matter of time before the public learned the names of the companies who abused the system. Not only did they know better, but the SBA should have known better before writing them a check.
Lovely that they returned the money, but that doesn't lessen the asshole factor.
Exactly!
It isn't too hard to figure out the motivation behind this either. We all know that these payroll loans will turn into grants provided they call everyone back to work once the All Clear is sounded. When you have billions, or even millions in profits every year, you don't need to be raping Main Street by raiding the PPP funds!
They were in dire need of that $9 million, weren't they???
Now they deny applying for or receiving PPP. Interesting.
Trump demands that they return it. Too funny.
They did apparently receive funds under CARES which they are supposed to apply directly to student tutions for students on financial aid - which is nearly every Harvard student.