Although almost the entire world suffered a lot economically last year, some places were especially affected a lot. One of such cities was Las Vegas, as soon as international and domestic travel had a ban, there were no tourists coming to the city. Although this was the same everywhere, Las Vegas’s entire economy is dependent on tourism. Almost every person has a stake in the tourism industry one way or another. so, as footfall died down so did jobs and any flowing income. Let’s see the changes this situation has bought upon.
There are two kinds of employments prevalent in Las Vegas, either tourism related, or E-Commerce related. The conditions in these two sectors gave been in stark contrast to one another. On one hand the tourism industry completely collapsed which led to high numbers of unemployment and revenue streams dying off. This also led to a lot of tax sources being dried off.
Understanding the Economic Implications of Covid-19 in Las Vegas
Then in stark contrast E-Commerce websites and anything which was completely based on the internet thrived, but in the city a lot of the internet companies also had stakes in the tourism industries.
For a little while the government tried to save people from homelessness or being evicted from rental houses. But when these protections will get lifted, a lot of people will still be unemployed with no revenue sources. They will still not be able to pay off any rents or bills with already months of unpaid debts.
This will further lead to mass evictions and need for immediate cash. As a lot of people without savings are going to be denied any kind of personal loan by big banks and institutions they will have to turn somewhere for these needs.
This is where payday lenders saw their opportunity, ads saying bad credit loans, payday loans online no credit check instant approvals and other ads like this started popping up. But the lenders didn’t just think of starting ads by themselves, these were in response to an increase in the number of searches asking, “payday loans near me, bad credit loans” etc.
There was a sharp increase in the number of people looking to borrow money. The problem here was that a lot of these people were getting stuck in these debt circles where they had to keep borrowing to sustain their livelihood.
This was partly because of lack of government regulations in capping off maximum interest asked by lenders. Twenty states have already put a maximum limit on the interest, but Nevada fails to do so.
There is something very interesting that these lenders do which makes people borrow the money so easily, they don’t tell them what the actual interest rates are.
If you tell someone there is 800% interest on something chances are that they won’t be inclined to borrow money. But if you package it by saying that you have to pay 15% on every 100% which has been advanced. Now someone who is bad with numbers will know that if a loan is for 8 days, the annual rate would be about 800%. But in reality, a lot of people don’t even know correctly on what annual rates they borrowed the money for.
To get people out of this mess it is not enough to simply deposit some cash into their accounts. A lot of them have amassed debt more than what the government can pay. On the contrary a lot of them are simply asking for an opportunity to at least try to generate some revenue. They just want the economy to be opened again. Even if the number of tourists visiting will be very low, but it’s something more than nothing.
As people are realizing the need to reach as many customers as possible and the demand that certain products have all over the world, they are trying to move their businesses online. The concept of brick-and-mortar store is dying off, with online businesses you don’t have to think about rent, electricity, employees etc. all you need is a computer and the know how about operating an online business.
