Thank you for the discussion. I have never been as tempted to time the market as today, with the Nasdaq up 4% and the stock market appearing, to me, divorced from reality. I decided not to anyway. If it hikes to a goal I pre-set, I will bow out until this blows over, but I'm not intervening to say I know better. I actually think several arguments in this thread DO know better. The more problematic issue is that you're not betting that you know better - my only argument against the analyses that this is bigger than we yet know is just the reminder that you're also arguing that other people will notice they don't know better at a convenient moment, and it's that piece which I find impossible to predict, myself.
Starting a restaurant business was insane prior to this. The stats are as grim as previously mentioned, only the true environment is worse. Inside the industry, there is/was a general lack of awareness of how unlikely it is to pan out, and a general surplus of surprize when it doesn't, and especially surprize and anger over how difficult it is. Financiers don't open restaurants - people who love food, cooking, and hosting do, as well as people who have always worked in kitchens. Many of them approach funding like young people approach college - "guess this is the price I have to pay then, right?" I almost never see broad-spectrum analysis about the viability of the industry from inside the industry. That's sad and I wish it were different - these are some really hardworking people.
Restaurants are often 1-3 days from bouncing payments. The cash on hand is not high. The incentive to say "I worked hard for what I take home" is enormous - imagine someone pitching you to invest a quarter million in order to buy an 80-hour-a-week job that pays 45-65k. Then what, somebody tells you buy the way, build up a 50-100k cash cusion? How? How do you shutter for 3-9 weeks waiting for loans we still can't successfully get out to people when you have 3 days' cash on-hand? I think an awful lot of these small businesses, bought with maximum-leveraged investments that evaporated, won't have a source from which to reappear. Chains will reap the rewards that survive the joblessness.