What will happen to large companies once poor people have no more money to use?

They will give the poor credit, buy now pay later, till there is nothing left to squeeze out of them/us.

I suspect they will graciously provide the necessities in return for your labour and any remaining rights you have.

Take a look at how company stores and scrip worked. As the song goes: Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go/Sold my soul to the company store.

The early 80s will happen again until the late 90s come back, So Reagan then Clinton. Crime will go up, Graffiti, homeless etc The rent is skyrocketing like when Reagan took over. The economy works when the middle class does well and we can't keep funneling the money higher up. When the middle class can afford a home and cooperations stop buying them up to lease that might help.

The upper class: keeps all of the money, pays none of the taxes. The middle class: pays all of the taxes, does all of the work. The poor are there...just to scare the shit out of the middle class." -George Carlin'

That's the way the ruling class operates in any society: they try to divide the rest of the people; they keep the lower and the middle classes fighting with each other so that they, the rich, can run off with all the fucking money. Fairly simple thing... happens to work..." -George Carlin

They will ask central banks to print money so poor people can take loans.

Wait a second....

The first thing that came to mind upon reading the title is the movie Repo Men from 2010.

Plot from the Wikipedia:

In 2025, advancements in medical technology have perfected bio-mechanical organs.

A corporation known as The Union sells these expensive "artiforgs" on credit, and when customers are unable or unwilling to pay for their artiforgs The Union sends "repo men" to locate and forcibly repossess the organ - invariably resulting in the death of the owner.

I'd argue we're already there. Once you hit zero it’s not like you zip out of existence. When everyone is poor and has no money, the rich get to hire you and pay you enough to buy their products and keep them comfortable. You'll never make enough to get out of poverty because it's designed to keep you there.

Poverty isn't just about not having money, it's about never making enough to get out of poverty. When you're always living paycheck to paycheck, payday loan to payday loan - you're screwed. The system will never let you out. You're too profitable in that state to let out.

Think of the boot theory. If I only give you 10 bucks a year, you have to buy the 2 dollar boots every year that last only a year. The moment you made 11 dollars, you could buy the 5 dollar boot that lasts you a decade. The system incentivizes company's to sell 2 dollar boots cause it makes them more money in the long run, and if the entire world agrees to never pay you more than 10 dollars a year, every company can make that much more money. That's why your market value is not your fair pay.

The real reason poverty exists is because rich people need a slave class without being directly liable for owning them.

Nothing they will just sell their goods to those who can afford them. If individuals can’t afford an appliance, they will sell them to a landlord, a laundromat, a restaurant, another corporation, or rent them directly.

once poor people have no more money to use.

Unless you are referring to chattel slavery, or some barter system where people pay directly with goods or services, this is an impossibility. The poor will always be able to earn some meager amount of money (even if it’s company scrip), they just won’t be able to earn enough to escape poverty and debt. That’s what makes money valuable, that it can be exchanged for goods or labor.

They’ll loan money to the poor people and once that reaches its conclusion they’ll import more poor people.

Well the young people in China have taken to "lying flat".

Other companies like Klarna will pay and you'll pay them back over however many months. My nan used to call that type of agreement 'putting it on the never never'

The rich capitalists haven't made money the traditional way for about a generation now. The majority of wealth is made on the real estate and stock market which is based off of speculation and expectations of perceived value that have little to do with actual value.

So they'll just keep making money off their own money.

A little secret, if you want to see how this works, look into how to make LEAP Options calls on the SPY ETF. Basically you can leverage some money by buying an Options Call on a safe bet like betting on the top 500 US companies via an Exchange Traded Fund. A LEAP just means that bet is LONG term,over the course of years. Unlike Stocks, Options require you to either cash out (exercise) your Options after a certain amount of time (weeks to years) with the option to "roll over" your option call by putting down money for more time if it didn't do well in that allotted time, essentially doubling down on your bet should your bet not turn as much of a profit as you wanted.

This bet can be risky, but if you place your bet on say , the S&P 500, you bet on the top 500 companies. And you're basically betting on them doing well over a certain time period (say the next 3 years). The key to this is that Options call allows you to acquire say 60% more stock than you could technically afford, but you can only hold it for 3 years. If those 500 companies do well over the next 3 years (highly likely, pensions, retirement accounts, 401Ks, IRAs all rely on the S&P or some variation thereof), you get the returns of those stocks, and you got to leverage 60% more stocks than you could technically afford all because you were willing to make that bet within a certain time limit.

Worst case scenario is the US goes into a recession that lasts those 3 years and you either lose your entire investment or you invest some more money (but not as much as the initial bet usually) to extend your Option call out for another period of time.

It's one of the many ways even the moderately wealthy can earn a hefty profit over legalized gambling. The strategy I've just described to you is considered one of the safer bets amongst stock bros I've talked with, and it's a real life Free Money Glitch that works as long as US economy line goes up.

Now imagine the insanity that goes on in actual Wall Street with actual dynamically changing algorithms and people who have devoted their lives to making more money out of existing money, and you start to realize that these rich fucks at the top can basically say fuck all to investing in companies that create actual value, they just need lower level investors to believe that paradigm still exists.

They don't rely on your pennies to stay wealthy, they've created the ultimate dream of capitalism, where money infinitely generates more money regardless of what's happening in reality.

Use us as cheap labor to produce products intended to be sold overseas, just like China has been doing for the past 40 years or so.
Do you really think the people that made your iPhone will ever be able to afford an iPhone?

You're thinking about it like it's some abstract future event. It's not. It's a very real thing, not limited to the future. There are people who are broke right now, and people have been going broke for a very long time.

There isn't a point in time where everyone goes broke. People go broke at a rate. If you wait until everyone is broke you'll be waiting forever.

The thing that's wrong with the current financial reality is that the rate at which people go broke has increased. This means more homeless people on the streets than there were, say, 25 years ago.

It's like Monopoly, they just keep going until there's only one player left and nobody is on speaking terms.

In The Outer Worlds video game it's the reality - there's a few megacorporations and people are basically their property.

Some suspect that production will start to shift to worker owned enterprises and user owned services. These don't work for profit like capitalistic enterprises and can provide cheaper goods and services, something desperately needed when money is tight.

Another trend is distributed production. Capitalism works with the central production and distribution. However solar and wind often generate local and go against that model. Likely more forms of local production and distribution of food and goods are going to happen.

If it happens gradually, then some will go out of business while others will modify the ordering to appeal to those with money. If it happens suddenly that people don’t have money to spend, then governments will try to bail them out with public money, thus accelerating the public’s descent into poverty and then some will go out of business while others will modify the offering, etc.

But the thing is, people who have the financial power or political influence to prevent common people from going into poverty don’t stand to loose from this collapse. People with power and money increase their power and money both when thighs go well and when they go bad. Unfortunately more so when they go bad.

Unless, of course, the French Revolution happens.

They will go bankrupt, but the shareholders will already have cashed out and moved to the companies of the next country.

Oh, i see you have stumped onto one of the main inconsistencies of capitalism

something really funny

I'm reading the answers, and it seems like no one understood the question. 😔

More exploitation probably.

The whole model they operate on is unsustainable. Either Blackrock and vanguard keep them afloat. Or they'll take on personal loans, issue out corporate debt. Or find ways to downscale, either job losses shrinkflation. Or raise prices. These are all desperate measures and are signs of an unsustainable company.

Losing the middle class (if that's their target market) is a company's biggest downfall.

And I feel that the little people will start to lose hope cause it feels like it doesn't matter... But it's similar to someone on credit card debt. You can only do it so long before it starts to catch up.

I imagine they'd go under if they rely on the general public as their customer base. Companies that cater to the wealthy would probably grow. Companies are created and go bankrupt all the time, individuals in the owner class will win or lose but that won't affect the broad distribution of power. If it gets really bad feudalism might come back.

Trickle down shitononics will be taught to get your daily bread and water rations

the poor people will have given all of their money to the companies.

And then rich people will simply have all of the money.

Make shittier products under shittier conditions to keep slaves barely-alive. Use slaves. Reap shiny.

Currency will still be used. Unless everyone starts to absolutely own nothing, there will be bartering with something other than a fancy note with a promise of value from your local government. For example, food has been a staple currency for as long as agriculture has been a thing.

Based on what I'm seeing in the small business community around me...

1. Small businesses see less foot traffic, take out loans to survive, realize things aren't picking back up due to a drop in general spending, a drop that businesses like this can't weather but mega corps can
2. Small businesses close, go bankrupt, etc.
3. Eventually only mega corps left, it'll become the only option to do or buy anything, and we're all fucked

edit: At some point I hope we all realize we could stop fighting each other, have power in numbers, and eat the rich.

We'll circle back to feudalism

This happens to varying levels during most economic crises. Basically it results in contraction of the economy as companies cut expenses, I.e. wages. Usually there is some consolidation so that fewer, stronger firms can survive the downturn.

Then things get better.

They will target wealthy people.

They might be able to produce things with automation and AI and only sustain a small lower class to maintain those machines.

Maybe it drives unity?

They might go on fire a bit.

Once the poor people have no money for bread they will feast on richflesh.

The working class are a necessity until full automation is possible, at which point we will be genocided with kill bots. (except for the hottest of us who will remain sex slaves.)

There are a infinite amount of reindeer games the 1% can use to keep us floating precariously on the edge until said time... including UBI. The rules are made up, and fiat currency doesn't matter.