Feds Paid For Blockbusters, Bowling Alleys, Arcades, ‘Privatizing Profits, Socializing Risks’
8th September 2016
A decade after the advent of Netflix and well into the Internet age, one lender was still betting big on video cassettes: the federal government’s Small Business Administration (SBA).
The SBA repeatedly financed people’s plans to open Blockbuster Video stores in the late 2000s, when it was obvious to nearly everyone that such businesses were a sure ticket to bankruptcy.
Unsurprisingly, taxpayers ate the cost every time–part of $18 billion taxpayers lost through defaulted SBA loans to failed businesses in the last 15 years.
The findings come from a new report by OpenTheBooks.com, a non-profit government-spending watchdog and research group, examining how often SBA loans are not repaid.