I think you're referring to the pandemic years?

I'm talking about a period of time way before that when, as just one example, Staples grew and mom n' pop stationary stores could not compete. - sano

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Sorry, I missed that, and agree with you about the pre-pandemic decline of mom and pops. Walmart was especially hard on small towns, my small hometown in Indiana included.

Government still has a hand though with an ever increasing burden of regulatory compliance and paperwork. I work for a small company, 18 employees, and even someone as small as us has quite a burden where some form or another, or sometimes several, are due almost every month under threat of fines. We were late filing some 401k paperwork one year right after out chief account suddenly quit, and got fined $2,000.

We have a few back office people who keep up with this stuff as best as we can but a really small mom and pop where mom or pop does everything, I don't see how they do it. A giant big box chain can afford whole departments of accounting, legal, and HR people to keep up.