Blogger, which cradles this blog in its digital bosom, has a pretty good search function, as long as you use just one word - no phrases. Last I looked, there have been 185 "The New World" posts, and no, I am not going to read each one. I use the search bar (upper left - try it! It's fun!). I've been able to find what I needed - up until today.
I recently came across an article about the number of businesses that have closed permanently because of the pandemic. I know I wrote a post on that very topic last year. There were numbers. But I can't find it, so I can't do any comparison. You're free to search for it yourself, and if you find it, could you let me know?
Anyway, the Business Insider tells us that in a normal year (i.e.: not 2020) about 600,000 businesses close permanently in the US (and I had to look elsewhere to find that about the same number of business are created in the same time period). However, in this non-normal year-and-change, an extra 200,000 businesses - above and beyond the normal 600,000 - have closed, never to open again.
This is actually a good thing, according to the Federal Reserve, who provided the numbers. Projections had actually been much higher, but government aid, including the PPP, has apparently made a big difference.
Two hundred thousand is a big number, and represents many more jobs. More math, more turmoil in people's lives. But overall, not a huge effect on the economy, especially if we can stop dithering on the infrastructure bill and just pass it already.
I'm not going to wander into politics; economics is close enough. I'm starting to think that the mice are right - by the end of the year (that long?) we'll all be back to normal, and the pandemic will begin to slide into memory and myth.
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