Maybe small businesses & gig work should not be the backbone of an economy for 328 million people?

[Yavin4]

I'm not saying that we should not have small businesses at all. We should. Gig work is fine as well. I'm just saying that these businesses should not be the economic lifeline for 25% of all US laborers.

What should we do instead? How about breaking up some of these monopolies, or near monopolies, into multiple medium sized businesses. Dust off those anti-trust laws and break up the Amazons, Facebooks, WalMarts, Home Depots, and other near monopolies into medium sized companies.

Less monopolies mean more medium sized companies which means more stable jobs. Jobs that won't disappear in a flash when there's a crisis. And wages would rise due to the increased number of businesses.

Let me repeat. I'm not saying that we should not have small businesses or gig work. We should. They do provide much needed services. We should not be reliant on them to carry the economy for 328 million people.

[Moostache]

1. Amen...ANY new ideas are welcome and NOW is the time for them!

The thing that has me the most befuddled during this entire event is the slavish devotion to the former status-quo and the mistaken belief that says the "economy" is going come roaring back in short order.

This is of course hand-in-hand with the worst of Trump's gaggle of lies: 'he' built the world's greatest economy in history. That rancid piece of fiction is allowed to be repeated with no corrections, no context and no objective evidence at all. IF - and I do NOT believe this at all - but IF the 'Trump' economy was in fact so goddamn great, then why did a single event bring it to its knees, cripple the population and crash and burn like another "greatest of all-time", the Hindenburg?

[Yavin4]

2. Gig work lowers the UE rate

If you've been employed at all within the time frame of the UE survey, you're counted as employed even if all that you did was drive an Uber for a night.

That makes it seem like the economy is roaring, but it's not. We have papered over the problems in our economy with temp jobs and low level service sector jobs.

We're seeing now that in an emergency those jobs all vanish, and it's the govt that has to take care of 15-25% of the labor force.

[Fiendish Thingy]

3. Infrastructure and renewable energy jobs could revitalize the economy quickly nt

[procon]

4. First, you'd have to get the money out of politics.

As long as corrupt politicians are allowed to enrich themselves under our system of legalized bribery, the giant corporations will grow larger and more powerful still.

Our form of laissez-faire capitalism does not mix well with democracy, but at present, there's no will to change it.

[Moostache]

5. I bet that is going to be changing in the next 6-18 months...

Things are going to get desperate FAST for alot of Americans. Food insecurity is going to drive home the fact that no matter how good it feels to "own the libs", it doesn't stop the hunger pangs or cries of starving children.

Our system has a whole lot of baked in cruelty to appeal to people who are getting fucked over by giving them a target to blame and to gloat over. Gloating is not as much fun on an empty stomach.

[Yavin4]

6. Well, 15-25% of the American labor force is dependent on full government assistance to live

Even if we re-open, those small service businesses won't be back. Either lack of customers or a re-occurence of the virus will knock them out.

We're being forced to re-evaluate and change whether there's big money in politics or not.

[TheFarseer]

7. Yes!

[c-rational]

8. I like the idea of breaking up the mega corporations. In addition, how about instituting both

minimum income coupled with a required two years of national service. There is a lot that needs to be done and a lot of people who would either want to do it or need the work.

[Yavin4]

9. A National Service is a great idea. It should be coupled with climate change.

We should develop a National Service Corp. to plan for and deal with the effects of climate change and other national crisises like this one.

Some can train for forrest fire fighting. Some can train for emergency services for a hurricane. Some can do climat change infrastructure projects. Some in health care. Some in manufacturing. The list is almost endless.

We need to reframe our national prepardness away from defending against foreign armies or invading nations to preparing for national emergencies.

[c-rational]

10. Agreed, and I like your list. This was one of my first posts on DU and at the time I was surprised

by the blow back. I also wanted it coupled with voter registration and civics lessons. The times they are a changin.

[JCMach1]

11. How a bout tax policy that gives money back to gov OR forces

Wealthy individuals and corporations to actually build out and up their companies/ businesses in THIS country.

[Yavin4]

12. Or force some sort of minimal mfg here in the U.S.

Create a list of essential goods that need to be made here in the US. Don't outsource everything.

[JCMach1]

17. This was a big part of America's expansions in 1950s and 1960s

All the investments had to be at home though, or no way to lower your tax obligation.

[dsc]

13. I don't see how breaking up larger businesses would change the percent of jobs tied to small

businesses. To do that you would have to have them consolidate.

[Yavin4]

14. If you broke up Amazon, you could create multiple online retailers.

Instead of a one stop shop retail, Amazon's online retial business could be broken up into separate units for clothing, books, household products, etc.

Doing so would create multiple businesses which would each need their own web developers, accountants, IT staff, admins, HR, etc.

That would move people away from the small businesses to more medium sized businesses.

[dsc]

15. It might affect at the margins

but I doubt that any break up would result in more than say a 5% increase in total employees.

[Yavin4]

16. You would be surprised at how much consolidation that there is in corporate America

Check out the video at the link: