Shake Shack Returns PPP Loan | Talking Points Memo

Shake Shack announced Monday morning that it’s returning the $10 million loan it received from the Paycheck Protection Program as part of the $349 billion coronavirus relief package.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1304880

I was hoping they “returned” the loan in the form of lobbing a shake at Hair Furor.

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Gotta include some oversight and more disclosure in the bill under consideration right now. Do your jobs Chuck and Nancy, these reports give you the angle to push… the lever to be used…

Use it.

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Saw this earlier. Yay, Shake Shack. We drove to A2 on Saturday, and my husband (with mask on) ordered lunch at an outside table from a masked waiter. Picked it up a few minutes later and ate in the car. It was nice to get out and away from the house. Business was brisk as others had the same idea. Not as busy as usual but still pretty good.

Garutti added that the company hopes that by returning the $10 million loan, it “can go back into the pot and go to the people that deserve it” as well as “inspire the next round.”

Is Ruth’s Chris going to return its share? haha.

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By and large, Danny Meyer is a stand-up guy.

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“As we watched this opportunity play out over the weeks, it was very clear that the program was underfunded and wasn’t set up for everyone to win,” Garutti said.

Why, that would be … Socialism. Can’t have any of that. I mean, where would I get my unfair advantage if everyone can win?

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My son and his wife are still on a payroll and their jobs allow them to work from home.
He has a small businessman neighbor with $11 in the bank and a wife and 2 kids.
My son, bless his heart, bought them $200 in groceries. This PPP is unfathomable.

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Wonder if Larry Kudlow’s wife will give back her loan? - just kidding we all know she won’t…

President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, has revealed that his wife has had an easy time applying through the small business loan program to help keep her art business afloat amid the coronavirus crisis, despite others reporting big problems.

“My wife Judy… she is a self-employed artist-painter, very distinguished one, some renowned, she could use some help for her operation,” Kudlow said during an interview with POLITICO last week.

Kudlow, whose personal assets are valued at a maximum net worth of $2 million according to a 2018 Bloomberg report, touted how simple it was for his wife to take out a loan for her business under the Small Business Administration loan program.

‘She went to a local, community bank up by our place in Connecticut and apparently it’s just a one-page form, that’s all it is. It couldn’t be easier,’ Kudlow said.

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the company hopes that by returning the $10 million loan, it “can go back into the pot and go to the people that deserve it”

With the program being administered by the Kockholster Klan I find that possibility to be very unlikely.

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At least they seem to have some morals by returning a SMALL business loan. United Airlines received a billion dollar bailout, and they’re still laying off workers. I guess grifters gotta grift.

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Garutti and Meyer also criticized the PPP application process in the letter, arguing that many restaurants couldn’t receive funds from the program because applying for it “came with no user manual and it was extremely confusing.”

Huh. How 'bout that? Looks like someone in the Shack figured it out to the tune of $10,000,000. Maybe they should share that wealth too.

So in all the reporting about these small business loans what I’ve learned from someone interviewing Tom Colicchio and other restaurateurs is that the terms are not conducive to small restaurants. They have to open by a certain date in June, and who knows if testing will be wide enough for customers to be comfortable with going to a sit down meal at a restaurant. Many restaurant employees are on unemployment, if they give that up now to work for a month or so and the restaurant closes again they won’t be better off. Then for restaurants there’s the vendors, will they have vendors, will the vendors have their supply chains back up and running.
I realize that this is new and uncharted territory, but opening up too soon can be worse than not having a plan to slowly open up sectors of businesses.

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The TSA Precheck version of loan applications.

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I just had to renew my Nexus card. Holy crap. What a mess. Saved all the work so it’ll be easier when my husband has to renew his. It was nothing like this the first time.

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Good for them!

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WaPo has a good article about it.

Some of the companies receiving money are clients of JPMorgan Chase, adding fuel to criticism that Wall Street banks had helped their clients obtain large amounts. The bank put out a statement Sunday saying that it is “proud to have secured more funding for small businesses than anyone else in the industry” and that 80 percent of its PPP loans have been for businesses with less than $5 million in revenue.

JPMorgan explained that larger companies may have been served more quickly because its commercial banking unit, which serves larger clients, was able to complete “most of the applications it received” while many more applications poured in from traditional small businesses.

The PPP program was intended to benefit workers at businesses and nonprofit employers with fewer than 500 employees that are unable to obtain credit elsewhere, according to the Small Business Act, which formed the basis for the program.

As the program ran out of money, however, leaving thousands of small businesses without money to pay their workers, criticism mounted about some of the money going to national brands.

The initial PPP “was flawed from top to bottom,” said Florida small business owners Duncan and Rita MacDonald-Korth. “The program has done very little to help genuine small businesses and instead has benefited large companies who have used subsidiary entities to benefit disproportionately and unfairly.”

The couple created a petition asking that the program be limited to companies with fewer than 250 employees and that half of it be reserved for those with 50 employees or fewer.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/20/white-house-gop-face-heat-after-hotel-restaurant-chains-helped-run-small-business-program-dry/?utm_campaign=wp_news_alert_revere_trending_now&utm_medium=email&utm_source=alert&wpisrc=al_trending_now__alert-economy--alert-national&wpmk=1

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The intent of this was to keep small businesses afloat, by allowing them to pay their expenses and payroll. There shouldn’t have been anything in there to require them to reopen, the entire point was to carry them over until they could reopen safely, and allow them to open in as good a financial shape as possible. Dumping this money into the big chains doesn’t make sense, those businesses have other ways to stay afloat, they have capital and ways to get loans that small businesses just don’t have.

But, none of us really should be surprised by this, it was a Republican developed plan that is giving each millionaire and average $1.6 million tax cut, $170 billion to real estate developers, billions to businesses like airlines that can get by using other means, and over $500 billion in a slush fund with little oversight. The pitiful $1200 per taxpayer making less than $75000 is nothing in comparison, especially since it’s likely a lot of the people who just lost their jobs (and health insurance if they had any) worked for the big businesses that just got bailed out. Even in the midst of the worst pandemic in 100 years, Republicans are still showing that they only care about corporations and the wealthy, and the rest of us can fend for ourselves on the scraps.

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You’re inferring Chuck and Nancy aren’t doing their jobs. But those who aren’t doing their jobs are any repub you care to name. They hate Big Government, are gritting their teeth to even agree to more Federal funding for anything related to the virus. Maybe the repubs could consider rescinding the huge tax break they gave the rich at the start of PP’s term. I’m confident Democratic leaders would agree to consider that in a heartbeat.

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GREEDY Mutha-Frukers. Now, will Ruth’s Chris Steak give back its $20Mil?

Garutti and Meyer also criticized the PPP application process in the letter, arguing that many restaurants couldn’t receive funds from the program because applying for it “came with no user manual and it was extremely confusing.

Interpretation: IT’S YOUR FAULT you let us get the money…