
Pyrrhic Victory - oftenwrong
https://granolashotgun.com/2020/06/16/pyrrhic-victory/
======
roenxi
Two parts of this short and powerful piece really leapt out at me:

> all under the auspices of a hard line Republican administration

> Washington under any administration will have no choice but to bail out all
> the state and local agencies and every insolvent pension scheme wholesale

There are underlying problems being forced to the surface by COVID that go
deeper than political parties. Somewhere between the 1970s and 2000s American
politicians as a class (and possibly a supermajority of voters too) have
accepted that running up debt literally does not matter.

The economy is brutal. It is a fabricated social concept built on trust right
up until the moment it breaks out into the physical world and things that
desperately need to happen stop happening because it doesn't make any economic
sense.

The persistent bailouts are making losers of people who make good long term
decisions. Sooner or later, nobody will be left who makes good long term
decisions. Such people have been exorcised from the financial industry.

~~~
pjc50
> running up debt literally does not matter.

The creditors don't seem to mind it either, happily buying hundred-year bonds
with near-zero interest rates.

Also remember that every "saving" is also a "debt" on the other side of
somebody's ledger. Quite a lot of that corporate and government debt _is_
"savings"; $270 billion of it is owed to Apple alone.
[http://thewire.fiig.com.au/article/2018/04/24/how-apple-
inve...](http://thewire.fiig.com.au/article/2018/04/24/how-apple-invests-
its-$270bn-cash-stockpile)

> The economy is brutal. It is a fabricated social concept built on trust
> right up until the moment it breaks out into the physical world and things
> that desperately need to happen stop happening because it doesn't make any
> economic sense.

This was one of the questions that Keynes explored - how it is possible to
have productive capacity idle because there isn't _enough_ credit for people
to buy the products.

It's also the idea behind a lot of the "green new deal" schemes; do things
that need to be done but don't offer a specific return, but benefit society
and the planet as a whole.

> The persistent bailouts are making losers of people who make good long term
> decisions

How, exactly? What "long term decisions" would not have been worse off if the
2008 bailouts hadn't been made and a large chunk of Western retail banking had
gone insolvent, tying up accounts until it could have been resolved? There is
an important difference between "this business is no longer viable", and "this
business is perfectly viable in the future but is experiencing a temporary
shock which its cashflow and trade credit cannot cover".

~~~
chewz
>> The persistent bailouts are making losers of people who make good long term
decisions

> How, exactly?

Keeping interest rates very low is hurting people who are saving money. Not
just in banks also via pension funds[-], retirement schemese, life insurance.

It pushes savers into taking risky bets with real estates or stocks or even
direct consumption (spending money instead of saving them is very risky bet on
the future of events).

[-] The pensions will be low because 1) compound interest on riskless part of
one's pension assets is low 2) Other assets that one will be purchasing with
retirement money will be grossly inflated with cheap money chasing yields, via
consumption etc.

~~~
StillBored
You forgot inflationary pressure from all the "free" money. That is what
really upset me the most about the 2008/etc situation. I was looking to buy a
house, and you would have never known there was a housing crisis where I lived
(Austin).

The banks were more than willing to sit on assets than actually sell
foreclosed properties at market values. So while the housing prices went down
slightly, your talking maybe a 10% after a decade of 10% a year increases. The
"dip" didn't even last 2 years.

I myself made an offer on a forclosed/vacant house, and the bank counter
offered above the listing price.

I had friends who tried to buy already forclosed houses and literally sat
around for a year+ waiting for the banks to accept their offers. Eventually
like me, actually buying other properties.

~~~
chewz
I did mention pushing savers into real estate and other assets. Lots of people
are flipping houses simply because thay cannot get decent returns on bank
savings anymore.

Same goes for professional money managers of all kinds who simply cannot
provide decent returns to their customers by buying bonds like old school. So
they are forced to chase yields in other risky assets.

Also with bank savings everyone has an equal chance. With risky assets -
richer people are priviledged with better access to higher returns (via better
access to information, scale of investment, credit etc.). So disparities grow.

~~~
pjc50
Why are people _entitled_ to a positive return on capital, a particular form
of unearned income?

~~~
stickfigure
People are _entitled_ to allocate their savings as they choose. It naturally
gravitates to positive returns.

------
grandinj
We're in the midst of an unprecedented effort to time-shift
wealth/money/value.

Never before in history have we attempted to store wealth at this scale for
things like retirement.

In a world that was continually growing at a pretty solid pace (i.e. since
WW2) that was sort-of conceivable because the bigger next generation
effectively created more space for that.

But now people live, and retire, for muuuuuccchhhh longer.

And sovereign-wealth funds, retirement funds, insurance funds, etc, are much
larger.

And population growth is slowing (and with, financial growth).

Some very hard things to square coming up.

~~~
joejerryronnie
What does it look like 20-30 years from now when potential advances in the
biosciences extend the average lifetime by 20 years?

~~~
nicbou
Even if people lived no longer than before, the cost of education and
healthcare will keep rising, and there's seemingly nothing we can do about it.

[https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-
cost...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost-
disease/)

------
orbifold
It is interesting how different countries and cultures deal with the same
challenge. Streets were pretty empty and shops were closed for maybe a month
here in Germany. Now (almost) everything is open again, the streets are full.
Unemployment rose somewhat but not catastrophically. The images and videos we
get from the US feel apocalyptical in contrast.

~~~
woeirua
You have to be careful with what you look at in the US. The media here is
definitely cherry picking the worst of the worst to show people. Were some
places hit really hard? Yes. Absolutely. Does the entire country look like
NYC? No. Not even close.

~~~
couchand
Hey, even the outer boroughs seem more-or-less normal. It's just Manhattan
that looks post-apocalyptic, and even there it depends greatly on the
neighborhood.

~~~
kerkeslager
I live 90 minutes outside Manhattan, upstate.

Things aren't normal here. I can definitely see how one might mistake things
for being normal because businesses are opening up and people are going
outside, but if you look more closely, about half of the shops and restaurants
remain closed, and the places that are open are operating at half-capacity. If
you talk to the business owners, things are rough. Some local businesses
aren't staying open because they're making money, they're staying open because
they lose less money by being open (which is a big difference). The hope is
that they'll be able to start operating profitably again, but that's far from
guaranteed.

I really doubt that we have insight yet into how this is going to play out.

------
RobertoG
"That policy will work for as long as the rest of the world continues to
accept US dollars as something other than pieces of funny green paper…"

What a nonsense. Like if the USA is the only one doing it.

Everybody is doing it and at the same time.

I hope this help some people to dispel this myths about the "public debt" and
living to the grandchildren expense. What markets are covering this public
debt when everybody is doing it at the same time?

If something, this situation show how strong the modern economy is. Think
about it, a big part of the economy just stopped and the supermarkets are full
and there are not supply problems.

People are suffering because they are not payed, not because there is not food
available. Compared that to what would happen in other times in history if a
relevant percentage of the population stopped working globally.

~~~
tclancy
I think you missed the point. If the current administration, or possibly some
other dumb one in the future, undermines US credibility where other countries
unpeg from the dollar, we are going to turn into a shithole country pretty
quickly.

~~~
RobertoG
"other countries unpeg from the dollar.."

I don't know what that means. In the current international arrangements all
the important currencies are floating against each other all the time.

The value of the dollar (respect other currencies) comes from being the
currency of one of the most valuable economies in the world.

~~~
fuoqi
I think you severely underestimate the power of positive feedback. Some
economists argue that around of third of US GDP can be attributed to the
unique position of the dollar. If for some reason foreign investors and
governments will lose their faith in dollar (even today gov. bonds already
have negative inflation-adjusted profits, imagine if inflation will be
10%-20%), then they will start to dump bonds and assets nominated in $ (and
don't forget about even potential targeted economic attacks, e.g. from China).

This will mean that not only the third of GDP will effectively disappear, but
also that all inflation which was exported into the outer world until now will
come back at once. This will launch a crisis an order of magnitude bigger than
08, which can be QEd anymore, because no one outside and probably inside US
will buy gov bonds anymore (it's effectively already true today, but for now
it's compensated by a low money velocity due to the pandemic). Without cheap
money US business will lose a lot of its competitive advantage. And don't
forget that capital today is much more mobile compared to the beginning of the
20th century and thus positive feedback forces are that much stronger.

This will mean that "one of the most valuable economies in the world" is in a
very shaky position. I really-really hope that this scenario will not end in a
nuclear war...

P.S.: Japan is in a different position, IIRC most of its debt kept inside the
country. Plus it's a creditor nation, while US is a massively debtor one.

~~~
RobertoG
So, if I understand it properly, your model of the world is that the USA needs
to borrow in dollars (its own currency) in order to finance itself. In the
case that there were not enough buyers for their bonds, the interest rate of
the bonds should go up because offer and demand.

This beg the question of where is the money coming in the current situation,
where all the major countries are following the same policies.

At the same time, you are saying that "foreign investors" and "governments"
are buying bonds with negative inflation-adjusted profits because they have
"faith" in the US economy. So, in the last years, at the same time the deficit
and the public debt went up, the "faith" has gone up as show by the interest
rate.

Here is an alternative view: the markets are powerless to determine the
interest rate against the central bank. An example, Italy and the crisis of
debt of 2011. They had a debt crisis until the ECB decided there will be not
more crisis.

The markets dance to the song that the Fed sing. I don't know what more have
to happens for people to start accepting it. The federal government don't need
the markets, the markets need the bonds.

~~~
fuoqi
The interest rate is low because, as you correctly say, Fed uses infinite
money from printing press to make it so. In other words, foreign and domestic
actors already don't want to buy those bonds at the current rate, which is
precisely the early stages of the process I've tried to describe in the
previous message. It's just that they haven't started actively selling assets
nominated in $. Yet. (Well, apart from Russia, which has significantly reduced
amount of US bonds in its reserves)

Normally, printing money in such fashion (I hope we agree that Fed +
government does essentially that today? MMT proponents just propose to make
this process honest and transparent) would increase inflation, but in 08 this
inflation got mostly "exported" into foreign countries and today, as I've
said, it's compensated by low money velocity (see the Fisher equation). Money
velocity was steadily dropping for many years and it's another serious
indicator of structural problems of modern economy (one can view it as one of
the consequences of the rising wealth inequality). But the main problem in my
opinion is that I doubt that Fed will be able to drain liquidity fast enough
when velocity starts to rise, which may launch all the described positive
feedback forces, thus making situation geometrically worse.

A free lunch can not be infinite, one day you will have to pay. The scenario
which I've described is just one possibility of how the current system may
crumble.

------
kwhitefoot
Looking at those pictures from Norway I'm struck by how different our
countries actions have been during this crisis. Here hardly anything is
boarded up (even business that have failed or gone online-only just have an A4
notice in the window explaining the situation and apologizing for the lack of
service), and even when things were at their worst there were still people in
the streets, a lot of shops, offices, and industries were still operating.

So now I have to wonder: are those pictures representative of the US as a
whole?

~~~
the_pwner224
The boarding up is because of the looting and rioting. Before that they were
just closed as they would 'normally' close.

~~~
kasey_junk
That was true in my neighborhood in Chicago but I’m not sure it was in San
Francisco (where these pictures were taken).

I remember seeing board ups there very early in the shutdown.

~~~
andromeduck
It's true in SF as well. There were a few businesses boarded up when SIP
started but most of the boarding happened after union square and a few other
streets were looted around end of may. In june we went from something like
5-10% boarded up to the 30-60% now depending on district.

Even a lot of grocery stores are boarded up now, and quite a number of
convenience stores like CVS stopped operating in half their locations and
where operating, with reduced hours.

------
wazoox
The FED is buying out every asset in existence, that means that there aren't
any markets, any prices, everything is state-owned and the economy is entirely
socialized, and it's now the "USSA". Stock markets are surfing the wave to
grab as much as possible before the inevitable crash and collapse.

No wonder the IMF head said we need a "Great Reset". This can't end well...

~~~
nappy-doo
You realize the Fed isn't controlled by the government, right? Some of the
leaders are selected, but the decisions CAN (not necessarily are) made without
consultation of any of the branches of government. Besides the oversight of
the leadership, there is no power granted to the branches of government into
the Fed's decisions.

~~~
pdonis
_> You realize the Fed isn't controlled by the government, right?_

Wrong. The Fed is part of the government; it's just a part that's not
described anywhere in the Constitution. But we've long since given up on the
idea that the government should be limited to what's actually described in the
Constitution.

------
Kednicma
One of my parents is a pensioner and their attitude towards money is that "I
earned it, and so it's my money," regardless of whether that money is in their
accounts or in their monthly check. They really do view all of that money
which comes to them as being an entitlement which is already funded, and not
part of an ecumenical system of money.

> I have very clear memories of the political battles of the 1980s and 90s
> when my parents’ generation were in their prime working age. They demanded
> two contradictory things from government. First, they wanted their taxes
> reduced dramatically. Second, they wanted all the perks and services they
> were already receiving.

I can't put it any better. The government, to my parents and collateral
relatives (uncles and aunts), is simultaneously evil for taking Social
Security taxes from paychecks, and also good for paying out Social Security to
them, but they don't register the cognitive dissonance.

> So instead the gap was filled with debt, unrealistic future promises,
> attrition, and a can that was kicked down the road. Society went way out on
> the risk curve in search of “growth” that didn’t actually exist anywhere but
> on paper.

Yep. The idea that Social Security is paying it forward (or paying it
backward) is just too tough.

> The meme will be simple and palatable. These were benefits that were earned
> from years of hard work. These are the deserving recipients of what is due
> them. That’s completely different from just handing out fake cash to random
> slackers and wastrels who squander the money on Netflix and Amazon Prime
> without contributing to society.

I can hear the sarcasm in the author's inflection. And I can also hear its
stark effectiveness in my parent's complaints.

~~~
chrisco255
Social security taxes were never reduced. Income taxes have been through
various taxation schemes but the total Federal tax revenue as percentage of
GDP typically always hovers just under 20% regardless of tax legislation:
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S)

~~~
RhodesianHunter
Because the effective tax rate never really changes that much.

------
echelon
You ought to see Atlanta. We have more people outside now than even live in
the city. The yuppie dog parks with membership fees and booze have waiting
lines.

Consequently, you should also take a look at the Georgia coronavirus case
volume. But it's as if nobody gives a damn.

~~~
chrisco255
[https://ga-covid19.ondemand.sas.com/](https://ga-covid19.ondemand.sas.com/)
looks like case count has been flat for the past couple months and deaths are
down.

~~~
Marazan
Flat? there is literally a second peak on the daily case count chart and a 3rd
peak is forming. Deaths have been dropping but are now flattening off and
primed to rise.

~~~
mberning
Deaths have clearly peaked and are going down. Cases could be increasing due
to increased and/or improved testing.

~~~
Marazan
The 7 day average for Deaths has been static for about a week now. And given
the state of the premliminary death date in the 14 day window it will start
rising in a week.

~~~
Marazan
Historical note: I was wrong, whilst positive test results have and continue
to sky rocket deaths, after levelling of for a week, continue to fall.

~~~
mberning
Thanks for following up. I have been watching it as well.

------
close04
A bit off topic but why are all the windows boarded? I haven't seen this
practice in other parts of the world despite the fact that most stores
are/were also closed long term.

~~~
redis_mlc
The BLM protesters and related events smashed, looted and burned a lot of
retail locations a couple weeks ago. During/after most retail locations
boarded up, even 10 miles from downtown SF.

This is not that unusual in the US, and happened in previous years in LA and
Oakland.

It's not to close long term - it's to survive until the next day or week.

~~~
hirsin
They were also boarded up a month or two before the protests... At least in
Seattle. It's loss prevention - don't leave merchandise visible behind windows
if the entire street will be empty for months to come.

Edit - E.g. This business which was not out of the ordinary when it boarded up
end of March.
[https://www.instagram.com/p/B-GT1hhgPZS/?igshid=12qp4pjwu2jv...](https://www.instagram.com/p/B-GT1hhgPZS/?igshid=12qp4pjwu2jvn)

~~~
redis_mlc
Jewelry stores were previously boarded up in SF, but operating grocery stores,
Target, and Walgreen's seemed to be a new thing.

Stonestown Mall, which is a long way from downtown SF, suddenly boarded up McD
and Target during the protests.

------
augustt
Heads up: this page has 200MB of resources.

~~~
syncsynchalt
Thanks, I've been watching the inspector (currently at 110MB downloaded) for
the last few minutes wondering when it might finish so I can read.

I can probably just skip the blank space and read the text but I assumed the
images were meaningful since they are taking so much leading space, that might
not be the case though.

~~~
acqq
Asking everybody: is there some page where one can enter the URL and see
minimized pictures from some web page?

E.g. I guess these 200 MB in 60 pngs could be reduced to cca 2 MB jpgs all.

------
war1025
I thought the angle he was going at was that our fight against the Coronavirus
was going to be a Pyrrihic victory because we cratered our economy in the
process.

Apparently he was going after some other indirect angle about people ragging
on cities doing poorly and those same people being dependent on revenue from
cities.

The first would have been a far more fitting essay, in my opinion.

------
davidw
He has some good writing (he's a regular contributor to Strong Towns), but I
feel he's also a 'doom and gloom' guy.

He's correct about cities and their importance, but there's a lot going on
with macroeconomics that seems to be 'weaponized' by a lot of people, rather
than discussed carefully and critically. I suppose the latter happens in
academic journals that don't see much public exposure.

Remember the doom and gloom people who predicted runaway inflation during the
last financial crisis?

I'm no expert, so it's difficult to parse out the legitimate worries from
people Pushing An Agenda.

------
polycaster
This thing with nailing boards to the office front is alienating me. What's
underlying this strange behavior? Is the general expectation of damage being
done to uninhibited buildings really reasonable?

~~~
dx87
In cities, it seems reasonable. Bored kids with no supervision will go around
breaking things for fun, especially if they think it's unoccupied and nobody
will care.

------
WealthVsSurvive
Finance, Insurance, Real-Estate: FIRE. It's called FIRE because if you let
them freely trade in a market system, they will eventually end up with
everyone beholden to them and the price of everything inaccessible save
through them. This will set everything on FIRE. It will erode people's
incentives to trade, devalue labor to ensure people are beholden to them, and
make your country vulnerable to fascism and foreign military occupation as a
result of in-fighting, as oligarchs attempt to divide and conquer a country
from within and block the state's ability to collect taxes for defense all to
avoid their private losses and the loss of their precious wealth!

ITS ON FIRE!

------
forgotmypw17
Do we really need all these stores? They all sell useless crap no one needs,
after it's been torn out of our beautiful habitat, causing immeasurable
environmental, animal, and plant health damage, transported around from place
to place dozens of times on diesel, only to be used once or twice and thrown
away. I'm glad they are boarded up.

------
StillBored
I'm in Austin TX, it looked empty like that a month ago. It was nice, not to
have to sit around in traffic for once...

OTOH, it took about a week before the roads/stores were full again. Around
here there are plenty of closed businesses too, but the ones that are open
seem about as busy (if not more) so than usual.

While the idea of shutting everything down during a pandemic to keep from
wiping out 50% of the population/whatever might be a good idea. It was pretty
apparent early on that this was low single digit % and overwhelmingly people
with existing serious conditions. Telling those people to self quarantine
really was the only solution. Its readily apparently that nothing actually
changed in the month we stayed at home in TX. No vaccine, no additional
personal protective equipment, nothing. So we all just sat at home and
destroyed a large part of the economy for nothing. Particularly since to have
done it "right" we would all still be sitting at home waiting for a vaccine or
whatever. Given the current time-frame it might be another 6+ months. Even the
testing hasn't gotten good enough to test everyone in contact, much less even
find everyone who has been in contact. Maybe the one thing we now know is just
how effective good masks can be. Not that anyone is even wearing masks anymore
at some places (home depot for one).

So, big waste, nothing gained, and states saying closed until something
changes are going to be in a world of hurt. I predict they will be forced open
by politics long before either the testing/tracing or vaccine situation
changes sufficiently to make a difference.

~~~
willvarfar
Just playing devils advocate, but if only those at risk were supposed to
quarantine, would those at risk but not financially secure lie to keep
working, and would those at risk lose their jobs? Basically, "you're at risk,
so go home and be unemployed and sit there waiting for the world to move on
without you and strip you of everything"? I'm not saying there's a right or
wrong answer, I'm just wondering about how selective quarantining would have
worked in practice.

~~~
StillBored
Well, hopefully some solid unemployment funding would have been sufficient (or
at least a good start). Not that I consider the current unemployment checks to
be particularly helpful given how at least in austin they are 1/2 of the
average wage.

You would be talking a few percent of people staying home collecting
unemployment (say 2-4%) which is about 1/3 of the current national
unemployment. Yes, there probably would be a decline in restaurant/etc
business because people were "social distancing" but nothing like stopping
everything that wasn't a grocery store. But even then it would not be as bad.
Overwhelmingly the older generation is the one at risk, and is already retired
and staying home. It was the young 20 somethings working "service industry"
that were all sent home. The ones with the lowest health risk, and the largest
financial need.

AKA, it would be a big recession, but nothing like what we are about to
experience.

------
timwaagh
I'm glad i live in the eurozone. A place where something like this couldn't
possibly happen....

oh wait.

------
carapace
I don't think I understand what this is saying?

There are a lot of pictures of boarded up businesses, and the theme seems to
be that taxes will suffer so that pensions suffer so the retirees suffer so
the federal government will give them money. And that might not work if
confidence in the dollar wanes.

Is that it?

\- - - -

Empty streets are a good thing because the pandemic is still on. Without hella
tests and a vaccine distance and soap are our friends. The metaphor I think of
is an invisible fire. Until we have ways to see the fire the best you can do
is keep the fuel (you and me) apart.

\- - - -

The economy will reconfigure. "Reboot the economy!"

The whole point of markets is that they act as a kind of natural cybernetic
governor (in the mechanical, not political, sense of the word.)

Those empty buildings and store fronts will come back to life as soon as
possible. The physical infrastructure is not getting damaged by the virus.

People want to work, start businesses, build homes, go to school, all that.
The demand is there.

\- - - -

As an aside,

> First, they wanted their taxes reduced dramatically. Second, they wanted all
> the perks and services they were already receiving.

FWIW, you could do that by trimming a tiny bit off the defense budget and
improving health care efficiency.

(Defense and health care are the two largest parts of the US budget.)

\- - - -

Speaking of which I think people will continue to value the dollar as long as
the USA maintains it's military supremacy. We're the 800-lb gorilla still.

------
ericol
(Chrome) crtl+shift+i <<< this opens the dev console. Click on "Console".
Enter:

    
    
        jQuery('img[data-attachment-id]').each((i, e) => jQuery(e).remove())
    

Then enter. Voilà, al images (A lot) are gone.

------
doublesCs
> I’m 52 and have never had a cavity

What? Certainly that can't be true.

~~~
syncsynchalt
There's a big genetic component to oral health, such as the DEFB1 gene.

Some people are lucky and never get cavities.

Others are unlucky and need constant fillings despite a stringent oral health
regimen.

~~~
doublesCs
I imagined as much. I'm 35 and had a few cavities, and have friends who've had
loads of cavities and even teeth removed. But no cavities at 52, I never
thought that effect was so extreme. I would like to understand what exactly in
your genes is preventing cavities. Because from what I know cavities are
largely bacteria attacking your teeth? So some people have better defense
afainst those bacteria? How exactly does that work? I mean, microscopically.

------
noetic_techy
Sorry but I don't really buy it. The density that was the urban center will
likely be dispersed. It will take some time and be painful, but the market
will correct and shift.

Keep in mind that when level 4-5 self driving vehicles finally do arrive,
studies have shown that people will tolerate much longer commutes, especially
if they can work, sleep, or just relax in their car. That will push urban
sprawl even further out and reduce city population density also.

------
Invictus0
I have a lot of problems with this post.

* Photos of boarded up storefronts are used to imply that these stores are out of business. They're not, the reason they're boarded up is because of BLM rioters.

* Photos are not good evidence of real estate availability. No data is used or sought.

* I don't accept the handwavy notion that people leaving the city will automatically tank pension funds. The closure of the Chinese restaurant in the city is the opening of the Chinese restaurant in the suburbs. People still want to be near stores and restaurants and they can get that without being in the city.

* Even less do I accept the notion that everything we as a society undertake should ultimately benefit pension funds. This is a euphemism to get people to believe that corporate interests are your interests. The average American is not invested in the market and the people that are invested should have been made aware that market returns are not guaranteed.

I do agree that we are seeing an emergency in the Fed's debt spending. Future
historians will probably look at the Coronavirus meltdown as the Gavrilo
Princip moment that exposed the house of cards.

~~~
syncsynchalt
Businesses (at least in Denver) were boarded up months before the riots. It's
about the property being unattended, plywood is quick and easy to put up as
well as take down when the employees are back.

I agree that they shouldn't be used to imply the business is permanently
closed. The effect in the photos is still pretty striking.

