Because nothing says corporate greed quite like a fat case of corporate greed with a side of millionaire-money and financial mismanagement. In Manhattan, there’s this once fabulous book store called The Strand Book Store [owned by none other than a U.S Senator and his wife] that is now suffering from reported severe financial mismanagement and potential bankruptcy.
This might not seem so surprising to many and that’s because it has become all too normal. The Strand is owned by Bess Wyden —- the wife of US Senator Wyden from Oregon. Reports show that Wyden disgustingly mismanaged the finances of The Strand Store; laid off dozens of employees, and then had the nerve to ask the U.S government for a $1m PPP loan (and successfully managed to get it.)
Despite the windfall from the PPP loan, The Strand laid off dozens of people as the weeks had gone by. That might seem strange considering you’re not supposed to lay people off if you’re applyinh for PPP loans —- that can actually trigger investigations by authorities.
However, that didn’t matter to the Wyden ‘s.
Luckily I own the building the Strand is located in, otherwise we’d be past the point of bankruptcy, but even that won’t sustain a retail business without retail customers,’ Bass Wyden told DailyMail.com.
‘I’ve always subsidized The Strand’s operations – about $2 million a year comes from my personal finances, just to keep the store going.’
Despite Wyden ‘s net worth (believed to be in the tens-of-millions) and the subsidized help from the government —- the company took to Twitter pleading with the public for help as the weekend kicked off.
We need your help,’ the store’s official Twitter account said on Friday.
‘This is the post we hoped to never write, but today marks a huge turning point in The Strand’s history.
‘Our revenue has dropped nearly 70% compared to last year, and the loans and cash reserves that have kept us afloat these past months are depleted.’
‘We’ve survived just about everything for 93 years – the Great Depression, two World Wars, big box bookstores, e-books and online behemoths,’ Bass Wyden wrote in a letter to the store’s customers on Friday.
‘We are the last of the original 48 bookstores still standing from 4th Avenue’s famous Book Row.
‘Because of the impact of Covid-19, we cannot survive the huge decline in foot-traffic, a near complete loss of tourism, and zero in-store events (compared to 400 events pre-pandemic).’
In the gallery below, we’ve attached some pretty important images. There are disclosure images in the gallery that show Bass Wyden owns millions of dollars in stock; assets, and other bonds.
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