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The botched #PPP loan program crushed the American dream for thousands of small business owners.
Raking in millions, the wealthiest & biggest corporations took advantage of a program meant for our small businesses, and the government obliged!
Know someone with a small business that’s suffering? Watch and share this film with them.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:00
my name is linda valenzuela i own a
00:03
small
00:03
studio salon in downtown phoenix
00:06
my name is kb brown i live in
00:08
minneapolis minnesota
00:10
uh we own a full-service print shop
00:12
called wolfpack promotionals
00:14
my name is john lowery i live in
00:16
gastonia north carolina which is
00:18
just west of charlotte the end at elk
00:21
river we ran that for 24 years it’s a
00:24
bed breakfast
00:25
eight rooms i love it i really enjoy
00:27
working
00:28
and having the team and being able to
00:31
give
00:31
jobs to others we started on our own
00:34
from
00:35
the ground up and this was something i
00:37
had always wanted to do it
00:38
and we have quickly become a force in
00:41
the printing industry in minnesota march
00:43
1st we had 250 plus reservations on the
00:48
books 2019 had been our best year
00:50
ever we were very excited about 2020
00:53
and then mid-march came so this pandemic
00:56
of course has created a major health
00:58
scare it’s put wall street
01:00
into that steep slide and it’s
01:01
threatening main streets across the
01:03
country now from
01:04
big companies to small mom and pop shops
01:07
as americans hunker down to ride this
01:09
thing out
01:10
immediately as soon as new york started
01:13
getting that
01:14
i started getting cancellations in my
01:15
beauty salon the avery county health
01:17
department decided that
01:19
they wanted to close all hospitality
01:22
places that that allowed guests for 30
01:24
days or less
01:25
my industries i’m touching people i’m
01:27
right in front of them you cannot do it
01:29
from six feet apart
01:31
businesses like ours we immediately have
01:33
to move to figuring out how we’re going
01:34
to continue to keep our business going
01:37
not just for us but for our employees
01:40
and the people that are relying on us
01:42
the senate passing a two trillion dollar
01:44
stimulus bill the cares
01:46
act that bill includes 350 billion
01:48
dollars in aid to small business
01:51
so when we heard about the cares act we
01:54
were
01:55
excited you know about be like you know
01:58
at least we’re gonna have something to
01:59
you know just
02:00
help me through this they said oh you
02:03
have to do it at
02:04
six a.m we were awake already waiting to
02:07
be the first one
02:08
businesses tied to president trump were
02:11
cleared to receive millions of dollars
02:12
in coronavirus bailout funds
02:15
there’s some very wealthy recipients
02:17
country clubs
02:18
private jet companies billionaires
02:20
family offices and even kanye west
02:22
all receiving millions under that ppp
02:24
program
02:25
the loan created back in march under the
02:27
cares act
02:28
businesses tied to the president’s
02:30
relatives as well as associates received
02:32
as much as
02:33
21 million dollars in government loans
02:37
we had applied for the pp uh people loan
02:41
program
02:41
was turned down reapplied turned down
02:43
again
02:44
we got an email saying that
02:48
there wasn’t enough money the first
02:50
round we had reached out to our bank
02:52
basically we just got laughed out of
02:54
there
02:58
we’re gonna close it down put it up for
03:00
sale 24 years
03:02
had a good run we just started where
03:04
we’re getting some
03:06
some more orders in and stuff like that
03:08
but it’s still
03:09
just not enough for us to be able to
03:11
guarantee that we can
03:12
we can continue to pay people we’re
03:15
actually trying to figure out
03:16
what we’re going to do for employees
03:18
because i think we’ve lost everyone
03:20
it you know it kind of felt like there’s
03:22
hope and then there was like
03:24
nothing again
03:28
the government said they wanted to help
03:29
out the small business which makes up
03:31
probably 80 percent
03:32
of america’s job opportunities
03:35
and yet they were rewarding the money
03:37
huge sums of money
03:39
to outfits that really didn’t need
03:46
for us we were witnessing the the
03:48
largest wealth transfer we’ll see in our
03:50
lifetime
03:51
we have the greatest economy in the
03:53
history of our country
04:03
[Music]
04:39
you
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video
