Hey, now, ya young whippersnapper! Back in the day, we had the five and dime stores, and that’s how we liked it.
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Oh! You forgot the part where they use their profits from other stores to temporarily cut their prices at that location until all the other stores go out of business and then raise the prices at that store until it does go out of business! Oh, no, wait, you covered that in step 1.
This should be illegal. Honestly, I think it is, but… when you own the congress critters…
Although to be honest… Walmart is a symptom, not a cause.
You could theoretically have a terrarium economy; where it is completely isolated. People grow food, they make things, they provide services to each other- but nothing ever comes into or out of the economy. The farmers grow food, the cobbler makes shoes; the cobbler buys the leather from the farmer and the farmer buys shoes from the cobbler. Everyone adds value, but all that value is kept within the community.
Now, I’m specifically talking about rural WV areas here, because that’s what I know. It’s where I grew up, it’s where I was shunned, it’s where I was bashed up at for being different. You know, all those pleasant memories. Other areas may be different.
Up until about 100 years ago, most communities were like this, with minimal trade in and out. There was some goods made in the community that was sold, and some goods from outside the community brought in. And these areas survived.
But now… now things are different. The vast majority of food and goods are brought in from outside the community. But the only income coming in is labor for resource extraction (the profits go somewhere else, in true colonial style), which is getting less and less as automation gets more and more, and the disability and Social Security checks. No manufacturing, not much crafting, not much art exports. There are a lot of people who sell things to other people, but again, it’s labor, not profits, because they aren’t local products and the profits go somewhere else. Even if the shop is local, it doesn’t help much if they aren’t selling local products, it’s just re-arranging the money in the community.
Unless those communities figure out a revenue stream and an income source for their residents that involves getting money from outside of the community into the community… they are doomed. SSI quits when you die. Retirement only lasts so long. Just as much coal being mined, but very few miners. How much wood could a wood chuck chuck when a wood chuck has been replaced by an automated wood chucking device which doesn’t get paid, and even the tech to service it drives in from out of state?
Walmart may speed it up. It may slow it down. Less money leaving the community for the goods, makes those SSI checks go further. But it’s just a symptom of a larger problem, and those larger problems aren’t caused by Walmart, at least not directly.
Most rural areas are now like coal towns without the coal mine. As soon as the resources are gone and they have milked the last resident of their cash… everything leaves, and people are stuck with near worthless land, wondering what happened. Who wants to try to live off the land?
(What do I think they need to do? Information tech jobs, tourism jobs, remote service jobs, perhaps art and crafting; perhaps some high end manufacturing. All this needs infrastructure, which is in short supply, and no one wants to build it. Of course, the other big problem is these things need skilled people, and they don’t have skilled people because while WV produces a lot of skilled, intelligent, hard working people… a lot of them move to someplace with jobs. Few jobs, few skilled people. Few skilled people, few jobs.)
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Depends on what you’re buying.
GirlChild (like most kids I suspect) is obsessed with little crap plastic toys in blind boxes. You can buy them at a toy store or gamestop etc… for ~$5 ea or you can get them at the dollar store for ~$1-2 ea.
Recently it’s been packs of little micro lego animals (Chibimals? who can remember the names…).
But yeah, the staples like toothpaste and whatnot are much more expensive at the dollar store.
No, I don’t buy through Amazon, haven’t for over two years. I know “personal responsibility” won’t solve the systemic problems, but if people ignore the systemic issues because they find paying less for goods the only metric that matters in their lives those problems will be even less likely to get solved. Are people who grow their own vegetables and encourage others to do so ignoring food accessibility issues or trying to get more affordable food on some tables?
Henry Ford, while a bastard overall, knew that only by paying his workers enough to purchase his products would he stay in business.
Amen! I swear this is the happiest phrase I have read in a week.
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I can’t find it now, but there’s a metric for describing the number of times a dollar circulates within a community. A lot of chains will use that as a way to decide where they can go “strip mine” as @VeronicaConnor describes. If a thriving local community sees each dollar circulate something like 3.5 times locally, that community essentially triples their collective wealth.
When most chains come in, that number plummets. So I think collectively, it is fair to say “chains bad, local good,” but that doesn’t get at the availability and cost issues some in the community might still struggle with. That requires a caring community.
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A friend of mine bought the five $1 pregnancy tests, and when they all came up positive, she was sure he was having quintuplets!
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The ironic thing is that she was actually having septuplets.
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She should have bought more tests!
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Awesome, thanks! We looked at doing a community currency when I was in college, but I’d forgotten the terminology.
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Don’t forget Grocery Outlet stores, typically a good source for things you never see in discount stores. I regularly find cheese that is elsewhere $5 - 7 a pound, and there it’s blow out priced at a $1 a pound. I just today got Kerry Gold cheddar for $1.00 a pound. Now I have almost 50 years of thrift purchasing for huge restaurants and commissaries, I know my way around food costs.
P.S. cook your own food, cheaper and healthy for you and your family.
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Wow.
I can’t remember if you’ve had apprentices?
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And probably better tasting, too.
Another bonus is you know what is in there, because you added it.
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On my military days yes, but not in the private sector. It takes a lot of time to train a savvy purchaser, and dedicated person to learn it.
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One of these opened near me recently, and I often find great deals on organic snacks and whatnot, but the main downside is that a lot of what they sell for super cheap is basically surplus food that other places over-bought, so once it’s gone it’s gone and you can never find it there again.
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I too learned that the hard way, but the other day I saw Adams peanut butter 32 oz for $1.99, bought 6. Dear wife and I can destroy a PBJ in the throws of the munchies.
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Farmer John’s sausage at Dollar Tree is actually pretty good for a buck.
Oh yeah? Well back when I was growing up we had “five-and-dime” stores, because we didn’t have $0.99 cents, Mr. Richie Rich.
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