<story><title>Anger mounts after corporations tap small-business relief funds</title><url>https://thehill.com/policy/finance/493759-anger-mounts-after-corporations-tap-small-business-relief-funds</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>w0utert</author><text>We have the same discussion here in the Netherlands now, one of the poster childs of the (entirely rightful) public anger being Booking.com.&lt;p&gt;Companies like this have been raking in billions of revenue and profit until very, very recently, but instead of using even a tiny proportion of it for contingency planning they decided to take on more debt and buy back their own shares to boost their stock price instead, to &amp;#x27;reward&amp;#x27; their shareholders. And at the same time they used every loophole imaginable to evade taxes, effectively contributing next to nothing to tax revenue to be used for the public cause.&lt;p&gt;Now things went sour and within 1 month they are already out of money and cannot continue paying their employees, so they are begging to be bailed out with money that was intended to save small businesses that were forced to close by the government. They made $15 billion of profit last year alone, which would be enough to pay their ~17.5K employees for years to come, but decided to throw it at all their shareholders. The hotels and BnB&amp;#x27;s that use their platform will go down because the government aid is limited, but Booking.com needs to be saved...&lt;p&gt;Privatize the profits, socialize the losses, always the same thing. It&amp;#x27;s frankly quite disgusting and I have no sympathy for these companies at all.</text></comment>
<story><title>Anger mounts after corporations tap small-business relief funds</title><url>https://thehill.com/policy/finance/493759-anger-mounts-after-corporations-tap-small-business-relief-funds</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>nimbius</author><text>So ive got a few questions about this legislation now that its in effect...&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;Businesses rushed to apply for the loans, which the government said would be forgiven...&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Forgiven?&lt;/i&gt;  Then its not a loan anymore is it?  Its a bailout.  Was the intention to give a handout of cash to small businesses free of charge?&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;Democrats have since called for rules that would ensure smaller, community banks, particularly those that service minority and underbanked populations, have a leg up in the lending process.&lt;p&gt;I mean, the program ran out of money a week ago.  What exactly are we legislating?  these are businesses that are likely already shuttered after waiting five weeks to be told they either dont qualify or the money sacks empty.&lt;p&gt;This isnt something you get a do-over on.  Rubio doesnt seem to care that Hilton is a nine billion dollar multinational corporation that could afford to keep the lights on in every hotel they franchise for the next year, easily, without federal aid.  They could give away old hotels as makeshift hospitals.  Hilton is the thirty-sixth largest company in the USA and the fact that they qualified for something called a small business relief fund can only be attributed to a completely detached legislature if you&amp;#x27;re being amicable and giving the current legislation a fair chance to be anything but corrupt but frankly thats hard to do when the presidents friends are getting kickbacks from this program.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.npr.org&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;20&amp;#x2F;839455480&amp;#x2F;company-with-ties-to-trump-receives-millions-from-small-business-loan-program&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.npr.org&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;20&amp;#x2F;839455480&amp;#x2F;company-with-ties-t...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;What Rubio has basically managed to do is wipe out coffee houses, machine shops, shoe repair businesses, daycares and nail salons in every north american city.  Its pretty transparent that this funding was never intended to make it to taco trucks and barbers.</text></comment>