Episode 17: The War on Small Business with Carol Roth

essential and others expendable. Today I expose the government's war in the backboat of America and how COVID escalated a problem that's been ongoing for years. This is The Truth with Lisa Booth. Ye, welcome back to The Truth with Lisa Booth. I'm Lisa Booths, and this week we're covering a topic that too many Americans are familiar with, how small businesses in the middle class have suffered under government lockdowns.

Too often, leaders in government believe that they have a godlike capacity to make brilliant decisions for the stupid masses. They think they're superior to you, to me, both morally and intellectually, even though their job is to serve us the people. Remember we're their boss. Now. With the coronavirus,

politicians and bureaucrats. We saw them grab power in shocking and unprecedented ways, and with that power, they picked winners and they picked losers, deciding which businesses they liked and which ones they disliked, which workers were essential, and which ones were expendable. And what came next was devastation. The government imposed lockdowns across the country in the name of fighting the pandemic. Small businesses struggled to survive, and tragically,

many of those didn't. Many people lost the ability to put a roof over their kids heads or to feed their family. And those that did. Many of the businesses that stayed open or were able to stay open, a lot of them had to layoff employees. Millions of Americans have suffered, and many of them in their businesses still have not recovered. To really understand what happened and where we should go from here, I want to bring on Carol Roth to the show to discuss this assault on

small businesses and the middle class. She's an entrepreneur and investor, a best selling author, and a TV personality. She's also a self described recovering investment banker, and she has a really important new book that is out titled The War on small business how the government used the pandemic to crush the backbone of America. I'm pleased to welcome Carol Roth to the show. Uh, this is a conversation that needs to happen. You know, Carol, what what really interested you?

You know, why? Why did you want to write this book? So I've been a long time small business advocate. I wrote a book ten years ago about how hard it is to be a small business owner and all the risks, and I never really thought the number one risk was going to be the federal government coming in and shutting you down by mandate. Um. So I was actually approached very early in the pandemic by HarperCollins, who wanted a real kind of in depth economic take on what was

clearly going to be historic. And as I watched this unfold, I kind of wrote three and a half different books to be perfectly honest, and it ended up at like a hundred and sixty thousand words and they're like, no, you need to call that back. But the through line through all of it was really how small businesses who are the backbone of the economy, and that that's just not not just a moniker. They're nine point nine percent of all business entities, they're about half the GDP, they're

about half the jobs. So so this foundation of the economy got completely screwed over, and winners and losers were picked, and they were picked not based on data and science, but the government picked those winners and losers, who was going to thrive, who was going to fight to survive, based on political clout and connections, and then use that to enable the most historic wealth transfer that we've seen in our lifetime. So that seemed like a pretty big

story to me. Um And I'm actually flabbergasted that nobody else seems to be talking about it. Why don't people care more? You know? I think the people look at the macro headlines and it looks like the economy is recovering. It looks like things are doing great, But they don't realize if you kind of peeled back the onion, what that looks like. They don't realize that four hundred thousands small businesses had closed permanently by June of last year.

We don't even have a good updated number. We know that millions more are struggling to survive. They don't realize that the people who patronize those businesses transferred those dollars to big companies like Amazon, like Walmart, like Target. They

had record revenue. They don't understand the federal Reserve, which is opaque by design, and the fact that they put eight trillion dollars on their balance sheet and forced interest rates down back to zero, and how with all of these things that enabled sex seven technology companies to increase by three point for trillion dollars in value last year, and that it was a record year for initial public offerings and special purpose acquisition companies in terms of the

amount of money that they raised. So I think that because the financial aspect of it is so opaque, and you have so many media cheerleaders who are running running interference for for politicians, and you look at the headlines and it's it's easy to say, oh, like oh, it sounds like things are are getting back in order, and they don't realize that this huge transfer of wealth from main street to wall streets happened and really this is

clamping down on economic freedom and wealth creation opportunities. Well, and you had mentioned so pre pandemic small businesses accounted for you know, half of the GDP and half of the employment in the country. What does that look like now and what's the broader impact of that. Yeah, it's

a it's a really good question. Um, we know on the employment front that one of the things that happened in terms of the design of you know, how the government was going to quote unquote care for you from you know, the mandates that they created, is that they did a lot of things that made it very difficult for people to go want to go back into the workforce.

One of the things is this enhanced unemployment benefits, So not the money that your employer or in some states, you pay in out of each check for unemployment, but on top of that, they gave you a bonus for being unemployed, obviously decreasing the incentives they want to go back to work. They sent out stimulus checks, not necessarily based on your current need, but based on some arbitrary

number from a previous year. They shuttered school, so if if you were a parent that had kids, you know, you couldn't get your kids back in school, you might not have been able to go back to work. So they the government basically is now competing with small businesses for employees. And we have nine point three million jobs

in this country. That businesses can't fill. And that's very much being shouldered um by the small business community who are raising wages, offering signing bonuses, doing whatever they can, and they still can't get people to come back, um into employment. As far as you know what they're going to make up of the g DP, we don't have those numbers yet, but um there is a project called Opportunity Insights that's run in conjunction with Harvard that said

something like almost of the small businesses had been closed. Now, knowing the numbers like I do, I don't think that's of the thirty point two million small businesses, but it

could be of the six million employer businesses. So even if it's you know, two million businesses that are permanently closed and not contributing to the GDP and that money is going to the big businesses, that's a huge shift from main street to all streets well and ufortunately you know, we live in a society where sometimes people can be you know, sort of inherently selfish. If it doesn't impact them,

they don't really care. So for the folks, you know, let's say someone doesn't know a small business owner, they don't have a family member that's a small business owner. They don't feel like they should care about this issue. Why should they care? Why does this impact their life? Why does this impact the economy, Why does this impact the country. Yeah, it goes back to this bigger battle that we're seeing play out between the centralization and central power.

And you know, it used to be we were much closer to a free market system and free market capitalism, despite what some people think, just basically means freedom and choice and transparency and a level playing field where the government is just protecting your individual rights and your property rights. And unfortunately, central planning is a couple of people making the decisions on behalf of everyone and using force and coercion and control. And we've been moving along that spectrum.

If you think about the economy and those two half, you have half the economy that is the small businesses. As I said pre COVID thirty point two million. They're decentralized, they're independent, there is no concentration of power. Uh, they're very difficult to control, which is very good um and that creates economic freedom and wealth creation opportunities for a broad set of people. The other half the economy is

like ten to fifteen thousand big companies. And as you can imagine, if you're a politician and you're trying to consolidate power, who is it easier to align with and and get and you know, get in your pockets and have them make contributions and and you know, kind of being a coalition with the handful of big businesses or

the thirty point two million small businesses. So if you don't want there to be more centralized power, and uh, you know, I imagine in terms of all the things that you discussed about the size of the government, the amount that they spend, the laws, you know, all those kinds of things, you should not want the government to be doing more things than have more power. If you start getting rid of this the centralized portion of the economy, it just makes that central portion larger and bigger and

harder to combat. And it's it's basically slides us across that scale closer to socialism. And that's something that should scare everybody. Well, I think that's a great point, you know, and you talked about the enhanced unemployment benefits and you

had mentioned socialism just now. I mean, we've essentially created a you know, a country that is dependent on the federal government on a scale that you know, maybe we we we never have before in history, and so you're right, that does move us closer to a socialist type country where we're we're consolidating power at the top with the big corporations and you know, big government as well. And

do you think that is why? I mean, lately we've seen corporations insert themselves in more and more things, more and more issues, for instance, going after Georgia over their voting law. Do you think that correlates to what we've seen over the past year as big businesses has been

allowed to grow at the expense of small business. The fact that they're involved in everything, whether it is, like you said, voting laws, whether it's Mark Zuckerberg standing up and saying I think you need to regulate the tech companies Jeff Bezos and Amazon coming out and pushing for

a higher minimum wage. They're doing all of these things because they know that it helps with that consolidation of power, and in some cases it's anti competitive to small business because we all think raining in the big guys is going to be a good thing and it's going to help the little guys. That's the excuse they use every single time, and it's just not true. I mean, if we go back to the Great Recession financial crisis, the banks did some things that were very, very risky. They

didn't work out. It ended up taking down the entire economy and affecting all of our lives. And they were told they were too big to fail. They got taxpair my me. But you know, we're going to slap them on the wrist and we're gonna regulate them, and that's going to raid them in. And so we came up

with this owner usk set of laws called Dodd Frank. Well, what was the outcome of DoD Frank As I lay out in the book, it ended up being so expensive and so difficult to comply with that it decreased the number of starts of small community banks from like a hundred a year to three to put a bunch of small business banks out of business. And as you can imagine, the smaller banks that have less assets under management are the ones who are lending too small businesses. So small

business lendings fell off a cliff. At the same time, because there was less competition from small companies, you had these big banks that grew even more and they increased the lending to big companies. So we have this legislation that was supposed to reign in these big banks that did bad things, and all it did was give them free reign and end up hurting some all business more. And so you know, it's very tempting to say, oh, we're gonna we're gonna use the government to to go

after these big guys. They're all in it together, they're all on the same side. So how do we rain them in? Yeah, I mean this is the like multi trillion dollar question. I mean, we need to move back along the spectrum closer to a free market, and we need to tear down the purview of the government, um,

which is obviously not an easy thing to do. And it's interesting a lot of um you know, the folks who back different ideas, they tend to back a candidate and think that like getting their guy or their gal in the system is all of a sudden going to shift everything. But this is so systemically broken. Um, I think we need to do more suing. Frankly of the government. I mean, they have put so many laws in place, they've done so many things that have overstepped their constitutional boundaries.

And think about you know what happened with COVID. You you subjugated property rights of small business owners for the good of society, and you didn't give them appropriate compensation. Eminent Domain says, if you're going to take their property, you owe them to do compensation. So I think we need to start challenging these things and courts because a tiny fraction of a fraction of a percent of all

the laws see challenges. And I think if we start to strip away those rights, obviously that in and of itself will help to reduce the size of the government, but will also perhaps keep some future politicians from going down that road, knowing that you know that's going to ultimately be challenged and be a no go. But we have been too complacent as individuals. I mean the fact that small business owners even agreed to these lockdowns effect

that so many Americans agreed to these mandates. Um. You know, these weren't laws, they were mandates, and they agreed and just said, Okay, well we're going to do this. Um. You know that's not us. We have to actively preserve our freedom. So on the small business side, you educate yourself, you understand these things, um, and then that helps to

take action. And I think you know another thing that I lay out in the book that's really important that needs to be reined in, which could probably be done through Congress, is reigning in the federal reserve. How how can a small business compete against the Amazons of the world. So it depends if you're talking about in a free market or with the help of the government, to the

government giving Amazon special favors. Because if you remember when Amazon was going to move their headquarters a couple of years ago, they ran around and they did this beauty pageant, right, So they're showing up in all these different locations and they're saying, okay, well, if we moved to your city, like what will you give us, Well, give us your firstborn child, will you give us, you know, naming rights.

It's like The Bachelor or something exactly exactly. So they're doing all these things, and of course they ended up going with the places that they were planning to go anyway, but they use that to extract editional benefits, like if I'm going to go open up a pizza parlor somewhere, or at least so you're gonna go open up a cup kick shop, like nobody's getting us naming rights, like we probably can't even get somebody to return our call.

We're gonna get all, you know, these these licenses that we have to get an insurance, that have to jump through a bunch of hoops, and nobody's going to be there to help us. So it's that kind of stuff that tilts the field and it makes it almost impossible for a small business to compete in terms of you know, if you took those away, and it's just free market competition.

As a small business, one of the biggest things that you have is the personal relationship with the customer, and building loyalty isn't transactional, right, It's based on relationships, and so small businesses do have certain areas where they can really outshine the big companies because they have the upper ttunity to generate those personal relationships with customers, which are

incredibly meaningful. UM. But eventually, you know, if you have to contend with all of these other governmental issues, that affects your pricing, UM, that affects your cost of employees, that affects your ability to even open a business, that affects your building, your ability to be deemed essential. Um. That's that's a no win situation. And so that's why we have to get the government out of the interference in the market, Carol, we have to take a quick

break back on the other side. One thing a lot of conservatives are sort of grappling with right now is you know, you look at Google, you look at Amazon, you look at big Tech. I mean, they're just so big. They have grown in size and scope. They've grown over the past year as we're discussing right now at the expensive small business. So I mean it's almost you know, the question is, really, are are they too big for the free market to you know, work itself out like

they've they've has gotten too too big for that. You know. So if you go back in history and you look at any point in time, there's always some companies that were deemed too big, and most of them have gone out of business or been replaced. Um. If you look at the Dow Jones companies, I think there's just a handful maybe like three of them that were there, you know, fifty plus years ago. So you know, there is this

natural change over in business that's allowed to happen. But since we've had so much um enhanced interference in the stock markets, and we've had so much enhanced interference in capitalism from the government. Um, there really has been these extra advantages that give them this unique scale that we haven't seen before. So I do feel like if we got out of the way, that would help to shrink our footprint. UM. So that's one thing to contend with.

I think the other thing from an antitrust standpoint, just because there's so much money going around, is if you think that normally when they look at antitrust and they say, okay, well you can't buy up businesses you know, in the same industry, or you can't buy up um, you know, a supply chain so that there's no other competition. I do think we're at the point where it's least worth discussing if you're dominating in you know, like every single industry.

You know, is that something that where there's a concern as well. But I also am blatantly untrust untrustful I guess of that scenario because we know the people who are going to write that legislation aren't doing it because they're worried about the big business and they care about

you know, us as individuals or small businesses. So the question is what things are they doing in that legislation to have the unintended consequences, And so that's where I become very concerned, is you know, if they're going to quote unquote break them up or not allow you know, certain murders, or not allow them into certain business lines,

you know, what does that mean for everybody else? And I think that's that's a question that we always need to be asking well, and not to be hyperbolic, but I mean, it seems like we're heading into a scenario where Jeff Bezos has more power than Joe Biden might even I would imagine that, and I hate them both, so I'd rather them not in either them had power. Wealthy individuals um, definitely, I think are working in connection

with the governmental officials. I think that the concern from that sort of power dynamic UM is that the business folks are probably a lot smarter the folks that are in Congress, So there is not really a stretch, right. So yeah, so I feel like that they're probably driving um the agendas to a large part behind the scenes, but we do need to be careful about this. And again this it goes to like strategic thinking and under

unintended consequences. The country that printed the most billionaires over the last year was not the United States, it was China. And so you have to remember, you know, when you get concerned, oh should we be, you know, concerned about the wealth of you know, Jeff Bezos or about Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, that this isn't just a national issue. And if we start to meddle in that, then you

have the Chinese people who have all the power. And again I mean this in terms of communist Chinese people, not Americans who are Chinese origin or whatnot, but you know, the actual communist party members who have all of the capital and then can come in and buy up America and be sort of, you know, kind of trojan horse their way through the power structure here. So you know that we have to remember, like I know, as Americans sometimes we think we're like the only game in town,

that we're the entire world, but we're not. And so things that you know affect us right now that we're looking at, don't forget about you know, all of these other powers out there, um that have gotten really wealthy by the way, since we exported capitalism to them. So thank thank the the United States were basically making sure

that the Chinese people benefited to your detriment um. But you know, we have we have to be really careful about that because you know, you can thumb your nose at US company doing x y z. Uh, it's doubly worth of if communist company x y Z comes here to do that. That's a good point, uh, and something

to think about. You know. I think one thing that really frustrates me in the conversation surrounding small businesses and COVID over the past year, and I'm sure you feel the same, is that this conversation of oh, was COVID that shut down these businesses? It was COVID that shut down you know, our economy. No, it was the government. It was government officials making poor decisions largely based off of bad data, and then when they got better data,

they didn't change their policy, didn't change their strategy. So it was the government that screwed over small businesses, not COVID. Ding ding, ding, ding ding. We have a winner? What what what did she win today? Yes? That's I mean, that's exactly and I've been trying to use very specific language that it was the government's reaction to the pandemic. That was the problem. That's in fact, that was what

the black Swan was. They had run in a series of test runs UM, something called an exercise called Crimson Contagion that was run at the federal level and conjunction was like fourteen states, and they had a scenario that they mocked up, which by the way, was strangely close to what happened that you know, something escaped from China and it was a bad virus and it came to

the US and there was a pandemic. Scary scary up parallels there, and so they ran a series of drills yeah, called Crimson should contage and you can go look it up and UM. So they you know, they knew what those issues were, where the potential bottle next war. So they should have been very prepared for the situation because they had run through it like literally months before UM and then you know, when it came time and by the way, you know, COVID was here for months before

they freaked out. I had COVID in February. Didn't know it at the time because there was no testing of course, because of the government UM and and their rules and regulations around that. But you know I found out afterwards because I had my antibodies tested and it was like, oh yeah, that that actually was covid um. So you know, people had had it. It was it was around, but

it was the specific set of decisions. It was those picking of winners and losers, and you know, making the economic decisions that we're not going to compensate the people, you know, who were deeming non essential and asking them to subjugate their rights. And none of that was based on any data or science. I mean, we knew in the beginning of March that the most vulnerable group was the elderly UM and some groups with comorbidity, So there could have been a focus around what do we do

to support the specific group UM. They could have, you know, out of the care's package, given all small businesses that were affected a trillion to a trillion and a half dollars bought themselves two to three months to figure out a mitigation strategy. They didn't do that either. They spent trillions of dollars on their cronies and the Kennedy Center for Deep Cleaning and all kinds of insanity. Harvard, who was shamed by the people of Twitter into giving the

money back. But you know, those were the kinds of decisions that were made both at the state and the federal level. That was specifically there was their reaction and even later in the year. I mean, one of the craziest stories is out of New York, Surprise, surprise, when they decided a Cuoma decided that he was going to shut down restaurants again. And when he looked, he looked at the contract of the contact tracing data that they

had done. It was their own data. Only one point four percent of the cases were traced back to restaurants. So why would you say that that's going to be the area of focus when that's like a tiny fraction of the overall issue. I mean, the same thing when he had these restaurants um that were allowed to open in part but only if they served you know, dip with chips. Like if you would serve chips, it wasn't enough. But if you serve dips with chips, you know, that

was enough. Like how how are dips scientific used to drive it? It's not And that's the part that everybody should be so frustrated about. Well, and also not to mention the fact, you know, all these restaurants just trying to keep up and comply with executive orders and regulation, you know, probably put a lot of restaurants under as well, like having to get the plastic barriers and all this extra crap to try to salvage and to try to stay open, and then in some instances they were shut

down again. I mean that that kills a business to have to spend that kind of money that they don't have on those sorts of things, just the compliance aspects, right, So you're you're limited and what you can do, so you don't have a full deck. Your customers are told to be frightened and not go to your restaurant because you have cooties. Um. And then if you want to comply, you have to put out all of this extra money

which you're not getting reimbursed for. And you're a small business that you don't have that same access to capital that the big companies are basically getting for free based on what the FED is doing in the suck market. I have a story in the book where I talk about l A. The Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grill, which you may remember in l A County, you know, had been around for a long time. They spent eighty thousand dollars reportedly to basically configure outdoor seating so that they

could be in compliance with these mandates. And then Eric Garcetti says, sorry, you know, we're gonna we're gonna just shut shut that down. You're not gonna be able to do outdoor seating. But a movie company was able to get a permit to shoot a movie and open up a catering tent to feed the cast and the crew of the movie literally hundreds of feet away in the same parking lot from this restaurant that spent all this

money that wasn't allowed to operate. Oh and by the way, I know you'll find the shocking the movie industry lobbyists who apparently work with this production company. I believe um had had din or with Gavin Newsom at the French Laundry r like just a short time prior to that happening. So you tell me that this isn't based on politics and it was based on data ensigns. Well, that's like

I like this line that you wrote. You wrote if Amazon's warehouse, every Walmart in big box liquor stores have been forced to close, just like small businesses uh that you know, if these powerful I'm skipping a little bit, but if these powerful connected entities would have created they would have created such a stink that the lockdowns would

have been lifted in two to three weeks. So essentially, if Amazon and Walmart had a face the same consequences that small business has had, this would have been lockdowns would have been lifted in two to three weeks. Do you think is that why big businesses were allowed to stay open? Yeah, I mean I think this is this goes back to the picking of winners and losers. You know, this narratives we're all in this together, and we completely were not all in this together anyway. As you said Amazon,

I hated that line. That drove me nuts because exactly we weren't all in this together. But sorry, you know, and I'm and I'm glad that it did. It should irritate and make everybody furious. Amazon's warehouse was able to stay open. Walmart could stay open. By the way, in some places, some states, we dispensaries that weren't even legal a few years prior were now essential and able to

stay open, but your small business wasn't. And the money that went to prop up the stock market after that crater created this like incredible growth in the stock market. The stock market had been truly crater and we didn't have that support. If Amazon was shut down and you couldn't order things, if your grocery store shut down, you couldn't go there, everyone would have said, wait a second, this isn't okay. The government can't do this. So they knew if you know, you keep the big guys open,

the big guys are happy. They're the ones that make the contributions, will pretend like we're doing something. The small businesses will be cannon fodder, and you can decide like either they were too small to matter, or they're too hard to control. The intentions don't matter, the outcomes due.

But those were the ones who got hurts, and so you had completely different experiences, and everybody running around telling how we were all in this together and we all had this horrendous experience when it's like a tale of two cities. I think it also showed how dumb some of our government officials are, whether mayors or governors, who have never had to run anything, They've never actually had to be you know, I mean, they're not really executives or not, you know. I mean, look at de Bosio

is basically run New York City into the ground. But it was such a misunderstanding of how businesses operate. Just this idea that they just can close, they can reopen, they can close, they can reopen. It's just such a misunderstanding of how businesses, you know, need or operate and what they need to function. Yeah, I mean, and we're

really paying the price for that now. So if if you've managed to survive as a business to this point, which many as we know have not, you know, by taking a large swath of the economy, turning it off and then trying to turn it back on again, like your power cycling a computer, you've disrupted all kinds of things.

I mean, we talked about the unemployment benefit issue and how that's affecting getting laborers back into the workforce, but that's also then disrupted the supply chain, so businesses can't get everything from raw materials to manufacturing access to in some cases shipping containers or transportation, and then for the products that you are getting, we're seeing massive inflation both based on supply chain interruption as well as all of

the money that has been pumped into the economy. So now if you're a small business, you're you're open, maybe, but you don't have any employees, and everything costs you more and you can't get some of the things that you need to run your business. And we don't know how long those long tail effects are going to happen. And again, if you're a bigger company, you're going to have the access to capital and the scale to be able to weather that. But if you're a smaller company

or not. I mean, there was an article on Seeking Alpha, which is a financial um kind of chat board, if you will, for people are really interested in stocks, and somebody put this article, how the chain restaurants are just crushing independent restaurants because of all of these issues that

we're talking about. And yeah, I mean, they have the capital, so of course they're they're going to be the ones that survived, and you know they're gonna have they're gonna face less competition, so you know, they're probably not crying about that, And like what's the broader impact on the economy, you know, looking ahead, Like we've talked about sort of the market manipulation, the you know, just printing money, throwing money at the problem, just you know, just all this

government interference. I mean, what's the long term impact of sort of the the economy and the economic repercus we're going to face as result of the past year. Yeah, so it's the past year, but it's also ongoing policies and some of the ones that are being proposed. Um. So there are a whole slew of things. And by the way, this is a super optimistic conversation, so really

apologize for being the bearer of bad news. Um. One thing that that potentially is that people should keep an eye on that they're probably not as as concerned about they may they may know about the overall debt that we have as a nation. Um. And obviously that's of concern to many people, but the servicing of the interest

on that debt is a big issue. I contend that part of the reason why the Federal Reserve is is pushing these interest rates down as low as they are is so that it keeps down the interest payments on the debt when that starts to rise. And they're going to have to do that as inflation continues to rise based on all of the money that they've printed, all

the intervention they've had in the market. Um, that's going to mean that we're spending more money as a country servicing the interest on that debt, which means paying for things that we've already bought. Not new things, not new investments, but stuff that's already been spent. We're going to have a larger part of our tax revenue going there, which is going to crowd out other spending. And I'm sure

you've seen this movie before. If we're spending more on interest, is not like the government's gonna be like, well, we need to cut back on these other places. So that means more of a tax burden on us as Americans. UM. From a like a short term standpoint, you know, inflation obviously everybody's feeling that right now. How long that lasts and at what levels really depend on some of the

policies coming down the road. One thing that could happen, which you know is very scared to think about, is something that doesn't happen very often, but we saw it, you know, decades ago, called stag inflation, where the economy stagnates but you still have the inflated prices and inflated wages, and so that's sort of an outcome that could happen because of this, this kind of historic experiment that we're in financially, and I think the biggest concern for people,

UM is just this attack on economic freedom and wealth creation. That there are going to be fewer ways for people to create wealth and have that economic freedom as Americans, you know, through your homes, through the stock market, through building a business. They're trying to make that more difficult for you. And so again that that shifts us more towards that central planning mode, more towards socialism, more towards the power control, and more people on the government goal.

And it just kills this unique example of economic prosperity that America has always been in the world and the potential civil unrest that could follow that, you know, and you can look throughout history when you see things like that happening and people don't have those same well creation opportunities, UM is really staggering. I mean, you can look at countries like Venezuela. Um. Yeah, but you know, so we

look at states. So I'm in Florida right now. I live in Miami at the moment, uh, you know, to Santa's governor, to Santa's kept Florida open for you know, the better part of the year, open the economy much earlier than states like New York or California. Do you know how the free states, the open states, how small businesses in those states have done in comparison to lockdown states. I know you're going to find this to be an

amazing statistic, but they've done better. You know, it's crazy, I thought, so, I know, it's like mind blowing, right. So if you look at like the deaths per million, obviously there are a number of factors that go in. Part of that population density, part of that, you know, how much of an older really population. But really across the board, you can see that those who had a heavy handed lockdown scenario didn't fare any better and in a lot of cases fared worse than those who had

a lighter touch approach. And again there's there's different reasons geographically, but we know that, you know, opening up the economy didn't create you know, these these massive amounts of depth,

so that that wasn't a big impact. But what we can see is from an economic standpoint, the places that took the lighter touch approach had a much better economic scenario, had a much faster recovery had a better UM scenario in terms of small businesses versus you know, state like New York UM where you know that the percentage of small businesses that are closed permanently versus you know what

we're open in January. You are just completely staggering. And the likelihood that you're going to see this rebirth, you know in the areas it's probably not going to come back particularly quickly either, so you know, it didn't have a health shifts, but it's certainly had an economic shift. Well, what's interesting, you know, for me from a political lens, it really crystallizes what the two parties stand for. I mean, you look at the left, you look at these leftist states,

big government, centralized power, power at the top. And then you look at the Republican states like Florida and just getting the government out of the way and allowing businesses to do their work and people to act like adults and make their own decisions for them. But you know that's sort of you know here nor there. Well, I would let me just add to that, you know, because

we were talking about the extended unemployment benefits. You know, the first states obviously two opt out of that UM tended to be red states who said, yeah, this doesn't seem like a good idea. This is keeping people out of the workforce, so we're going to opt out of that program. And now you're seeing some blue states jumping in and going out. You're probably right too, but that the leadership on that was definitely more of a red

state thing. Although I will have to say, um, you know, the whole small business issue is not only nonpartisan, but you know, in terms of some of the spending issues and the broader issues, both parties are also at fault, even though the left policies tend to be a little bit heavier heavier handed. And for the states that are you know, are no longer taking the enhanced unemployment aren't they doing better in terms of employment of having people go back to work in those states now that they've

stopped taking those enhancement benefits. It seems like that we're gonna actually get some really good data. As of the date that we're taping, this was right before the job's report comes out for the last month, So I think we're gonna get some really interesting data out of that, and I expect that we're going to see a rebound and I imagine that we're going to see a rebound specifically tied to the states who have decided um that you know, we're no longer going to be a part

of that. However, I do have, you know, my own theory, and this is just based on human nature more than economics per se, is that for people who have chosen to opt out and not go back to work right away, I do think we're not going to see a big recovery until after labor Day. Because if you've been out this whole time and it's now like July, it's the middle of the summer, and you know you've got all these things going on, is that where you're going to

go to start back into the workforce. So you're just going to take the rest of the summer off and just wait till after labor Day. So my guess is we're probably not going to see a shift until that kind of post labor day situation, which you get a total and complete disaster for small business owners who don't have the capital, as I mentioned, in some cases to even pay their rent for the month, let alone be able to be without employees and to scale back up

their businesses well. And to add to some of the additional challenges. And we have a president right now who's eyeing tax increases on you know, possibly sixty of the country and looking at spending trillions of dollars on an infrastructure bill that really isn't an infrastructure. Yeah. And let's add on to that, UM wanting to increase the federal

minimum wage, which I mentioned. You know, Amazon and folks are now pushing for UM and which, by the way, they've admitted Joe Biden used his outside voice instead of the inside voice in his head to whisper and say, oh, you know, we're now competing with you for employees, so that that's sort of a de facto pushed too, to

increase the minimum wage. And then there's something, UM, I don't know if you've talked about it before, called the pro Act, which is basically taking the independent contractor language from a B five in California and trying to nationalize it, which could completely kill the ability for people to be independent contractors, which is like fifty nine million jobs and small businesses, a lot of them rely heavily on independent contractors because the government makes it so difficult to hire

and maintain an employee. UM. So you know, all of those kinds of policies, and even something like the capital gains tax that they're talking about increasing, which by the way, Communist China's capital gains taxes only even even they know to keep that low. Um. That's something that it sounds again like it's an attack on the wealthy. But the wealthy is just going to move around their capital. But what they're not going to do is they're not going

to take on extra risk. They're gonna be looking in different places, um to minimize the risk in order to make up the differential that they have to make up for the higher taxes. So the riskiest businesses out there are the ones that are smaller and startups and most innovative. So who do you think is going to be hurt the most when you have, you know, somebody at the government interfering in the market and changing and disrupting risk allocation via capital gains tax. Of course it's gonna end

up being the small businesses. So all of these things they keep throwing out under the guys, we're gonna attack the world. They were going to attack the big guys, We're gonna, you know, do it for the little guys. It's to get them more revenue and power, and it's to crush the little guys, whether it's intentionally or just again because they're they're the easiest to kind of throw out his cannon fodder. Personally, I mean, I think it's intentional.

I think it's their worldview of trying to crush I mean, it's the left purports to be about the people, but they're about power and about power at the top and power with government as opposed to you know, actually giving power to the people. But uh, you know, so one thing, I'm just curious about how helpful was p PP two small businesses those loans. So this is this is a mixed bag. Um. It's kind of like, you know, how

helpful is a crumb keeping you from starving? Like, you know, it maybe sustains you for another few hours or a few days. Um. And certainly for some small businesses it was helpful. The problem is that it was a fraction of the overall dollars that were given out, and it was a fraction of the dollars that were needed to make up for the level of property rights interference that

the government government made. Um, right up front, the first, you know, the first trunch of it, and the Cares Act was structured so poorly, and this is all over

the media. It was before it's it's popping up again that the biggest quote unquote small companies out there were the ones who got most of the money, and it was exhausted in like thirteen to fourteen days, and so over three trunches, you know, about eight hundred billion has been taken down, which again is a fraction of the six plus trillion dollars we've spent at this point in time, um, But for the length of time that they've had these

small business owners on the ropes, like that's just you know, it's not enough for half of the economy. And even if a third of that half is what was the fact did, it's still not enough to make to make up for that. Plus you had to jump through all these hoops. A lot of people didn't qualify because they had contractors in their business or because of their own

debt backgrounds. Some people rightfully so, we're distrustful of the government, so they weren't sure that they were actually going to get it forgiven, so they decided not to go ahead with it. So like at every turn, um, you know, it was pretty clear that that program was not the savior that they touted to be, and we're continuing to see those issues. I had a small business owner just

email me today. I put it out on Twitter that they had applied for relief from this restaurant relief program that the Biden administration had in conjunction with the SBA, again picking winners and losers. If you're a restaurant, we're going to give you relief. You know, if you're a dry cleaner or something else like too bad for you, you can't apply. UM. But what they did is that they discriminated. They said, if you were a woman or

a minority, we were going to prioritize you. So they told three thousand women and minority businesses that they were going to get money. And you know, my particular small business owner who contacted me was had had said you were approved. They said the amount it was like fifty seven thousand dollars and you know whatever the it ended in into O eight, I don't remember. The middle number was UM and they showed the bank account it was going to and said it will be there in three

to seven days from now. You've been fully approved. And then they were sued. The SBA was sued and said, you know, you've discriminated and prioritize certain people based on race um And so then the SBA went back to three thousand women and minority owned businesses and stead, I'm sorry,

we're not giving you the money anymore. So instead of going and getting more money, which again we're talking like billions of dollars, which is a fraction of the trillions that they've wasted on other things in order to support these small businesses that they've already told they're giving a lifeline to, they've now rescinded that they've now taken that back, Like like, what what are we doing here? There's such

a callousness with the lockdowns as well. I mean, it's just such a disregard for lives and just you know people. I mean, you've got people like this is how they put food on the table, this is how people put a roof over their children's head, how they're going to be able to send their kids to college in the future. You have generational restaurants passed down, you know, throughout generations gone.

I mean, this is something that you know we're talking about, you know, restaurants businesses that people have worked their entire lives to build, just and then employ people that they employ as well. And it's like it's like there's just such a callousness and just such a disregard for the people at the heart of it. Yeah, and it's their identities. I don't don't think people realize if you've never into

small business before, how difficult it is. I mean, most small business owners have invested their own money to get it going, so they've taken on risk. They've worked definitely more than forty hours a week. You know, it's it's blood, sweat and tears. They've probably had more aggravation than they would if they had just had a regular job. And it becomes like their child and their identity, and they're really wrapped up in that business as a part of them.

And as you said, sometimes it's multigenerational, and to take that away from people, um can alter their lives. You know. I had a story. I put out a call to hear about some of these stories, and there's this horrendous story that that sticks with me. UM Here in the suburbs of Chicago, a guy who owned a carpet cleaning

business and that was shut down very early on. He could not qualify for p p P because he had had some past bad debts, so they disqualified him, and uh, you know, he really started bleeding cash and he turned to alcohol and he in short order took his own life. And this is the kind of thing we're talking about. I mean that that's a death from the government's decision to do these mandates and to tell this person that

he wasn't essential. So when people say, oh, you know, it's only money and it can be replaced, like, that's not it. That's not the story. That's not what happened. Um, So it's really really devastating to hear these stories. There's another one in Chicago, Southport Lanes, which is sort of like an eating, drinking and gathering establishment. It was about to celebrate one hundred years in business. It survived Prohibition as a bar, yet could not survive what the government

did during COVID. I mean, it's just absolutely staggering. And again, these are just a handful of millions of stories where people have either completely gone out of business or are you fighting to hang on. Well, that's one of the reasons I refused to ever say we're all in this together because we're not right, I was still getting a paycheck, So that's completely unfair to say what other people were

truly suffering. And every person out there that said we were all in this together was still getting a paycheck. I mean, I literally cannot think of one person who was out there saying we're all in this together that wasn't still employed and receiving a paycheck. So that, of course is at the height of the or think about the government. The government didn't take they didn't take a

cut exactly. It's like that that. Yeah, and you've got these people making these policies just devastating the lives of so many people who are still getting paid. I mean, it's sick. It really, it's twisted, and it's disgusting, and and of course there's not gonna ever be any consequences outside of, you know, trying to throw some of these bums out of political office, which is you know, nearly impossible in some of these liberal cities and states. But

you know, it's just it's twisted. I mean, it really is sick what's happened over the past year. Yeah, I mean, you've got Cuomo who got to write a book about his leadership and get an Emmy about what a great job he did and pat himself on the back and ended up murdering literally, you know, people as well as murdering small businesses. And and like you said, it's not

going to face um nearly the consequences. You know, one thing I've been advising small business owners to do is to sue because I really feel like, you know this, this is an eminent domain situation and they were not appropriately compensated. So I would imagine we would see some class action lawsuits pop up, you know, in in months, um, in years to follow, and uh, you know it's it's

a double edged sword because you know, they deserve their compensation. Um. But at the end of the day, you know who's paying for that. That's me and you, because it's not these government officials who have absolutely no risk uh for these ridiculous actions that they continue to take. And and that's a that's a darn shame. Quick commercial breaks, stay with us, well in real quick before we go. What needs to be done the most to help small businesses

right now? If you could pick one thing, So the thing that's easiest for all of us to do is to vote with your dollars and your wallets. I know it's super easy to go online and you know, go to a certain big online retailer, go to a big box retailer when you're out running errands. But really think about, you know, what that does to decentralization, economic freedom and the consolidation of power in the economy, and is it

worth it? Is that like extra click of convenience worth you know, taking away potential economic freedom and moving us into a place where there's this consolidated power. So I think if we are all more conscious about how we vote with our dollars um, that's an easy thing for us to attack as we continue to find ways to bring in the fed right in government and do all those other things that need to be done that are a lot more challenging to do. Carol, this has been

a fascinating discussion. I've really enjoyed it was super interesting. I'm so glad you wrote this book. And for the folks at home again, the book is called The War on Small Business, How the Government used the pandemic to crush the backbone of America. Carol, thanks so much for joining this week's episode. I really appreciate the discussion. Well,

thanks so much for giving it a platform. As we we kind of started out, not enough people care about this, So for you advocating for a small business and advocating for people to pick up the book so they can educate themselves and show the media and publishers and whatnot that people do care about this and they want to hear more people talking about this. Um, it's so important

and to walk the talk that I was just talking about. UM, if you don't want to go to the big company to buy the war on small business, there's a great online company called bookshop dot org and they will fulfill your order from a local small business bookseller. So anytime you want to buy a book, including this one, you can just go to bookshop dot org and then you'll be supporting a small business owner. So you've got to support a small business and small business advocacy at the

same time. I love that, So everyone go by the book there as opposed to you know, Amazon, So again, appreciate what you're doing. My heart goes out to everyone who's been suffering over the past year as a result of our horrible and tyrannical government. So Carol, appreciate your time. Thank you so much appreciate you. Thank you. I want to dake Carol Roth again for a really important interview in writing a book that everyone needs to read. And I want to thank you guys at home for listening.

If you enjoy today's show, please leave us a review and rate us five stars on the Apple Podcast. I love hearing your feedback. Please leave a review, Please leave reading, but only if it's five stars, just kidding. You can also find me on Twitter and Instagram at least some rebooth and I want to bank or team who makes this podcast possible. Producer John Cassio, writer Aaron Kleigman, researcher Isabella mcmannon Who's New and Who's doing a Great Job?

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