Democrats destroy civilization

New York City made a fine case for being the intellectual heart of America.

Made.

Yahoo Finance reported, "The Strand Book Store in New York City has stood as a source of pride for the Bass family for 93 years. With its famous slogan '18 Miles of Books,' the Manhattan shop has weathered the Great Depression, survived 9-11, and gone to battle with Amazon — all without a single layoff.

"That all changed in March, when owner Nancy Bass Wyden, the granddaughter of founder Benjamin Bass, made the painful decision to cut nearly 200 jobs because of the corona virus.

"'We shut everything down. We shut our store down, we shut our website down, we shut our warehouses down, because we were very concerned about the safety of our employees and the customers,' Wyden told Yahoo Finance. 'We went from over 200 employees to 12 employees to conserve the payroll.'

"More than two months later, the Strand is still in limbo: A little more certain about its next few months with loans secured through the government’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), but uncertain about its long term viability, given business lost from a sudden economic shock."

Covid-19 did not kill the Strand.

Democrats did.

The Democrats told us we had to shut down for two weeks to slow the spread of covid-19.

Foolishly, we let them.

Democrats kept subways open -- not requiring masks to ride -- turning New York City into the epicenter of this disease. I won't go into how Democrat governors in New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania bungled and helped spread covid-19 in nursing homes, which killed many people and of more importance to Democrats, gave them numbers to stoke the fear.

Oh yes, they want those stats up so they can keep the pandemic panic going. It gives them power.

The Strand survived bad economies, war, and al-Qaeda, but it will not survive Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo.

Sure, you can get books on Amazon, but when Jeff Bezos controls the book industry he will use that power to censor. He will do it in the name of protecting the public from disinformation.

The Yahoo story pointed out Democrats are killing small business, which is the spine of the middle class.

The story said, "The economic pressures are magnified for small businesses, which account for 50% of total employment in the U.S. A recent study by Deutsche Bank found that one quarter of small businesses only had enough cash on hand to operate for one to two more months, while 7% said they had no liquidity.

"'Many [small businesses] are in sectors that require face to face interactions with consumers. Many of them have a hard time getting credit to tie them over the types of liquidity problems they're facing now,' said Jason Furman, who served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama. 'There aren't mechanisms like Chapter 11 bankruptcy that work particularly well that would help a small business restructure, shed some of its debt and continue operating and moving forward.'"

Family restaurants are dying across the country. National and regional chains will benefit.

Good luck finding a bar too. A real one that is owned by the barkeeper.

Barbers and beauty shops also are shuttering.

Many of these businesses were in trouble before the lockdown. But the imperial orders from governors to stay home -- home confinement without adjudication -- killed easily half the small businesses in America.

But this madness goes beyond destroying the economy. The loss of wealth means the loss of the support for culture. What happened when the uber rich discover they are not so uber anymore? The panic's impact will be felt on our civilization for decades.

New York City just lost 18 Miles of Books. That is intellectual capital that the nation can ill afford to lose.