Forum Post: Beyond buying American: Why don't people shop/buy local?
Posted 13 years ago on Nov. 18, 2011, 8:51 a.m. EST by JWX
(14)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Buying from local stores and businesses (even if they're peddling foreign-made wares) are one of the biggest ways to bring back the small jobs that people need.
Buying from a local hardware store, for instance, puts the profits into the hands of the store owner, who lives locally. And he'll be able to spend those profits on other local businesses, enabling them to survive.
Buying the same stuff from Wal-Mart, Bed/Bath, Home Depot, and other big box stores funnels money away from the community, and the profits end up in the pockets of someone outside the community.
Why don't we? It's harder. It's more expensive.
The big box stores are considered rock solid, reliable investments as a result. And companies like Wal-Mart continue to branch out into more and more ventures, like grocery stores. More small businesses go under, and the local jobs that the 99% needs go with them.
Local money means local power. This isn't a chic-chic boutique trend. This is the hard reality of local economics: Wall Street is heavily invested in companies that funnel money out of communities, because it's become easier for regular people in small towns to dump their money into those funnels than to keep their dollars in their neighborhoods. We need to take our money out of the funnels, because those funnels lead to Wall Street.
How can we move from Occupy Wall Street, to Occupy Local? How can we get the word out, and get everyday people to get out of Big Box stores, and back into the local markets and stores?
Can we? Or is everyone used to the inexpensive noose that they've tied around their own necks?
we should boycott all of the business that are bad worldwide
buy local = absolutely.
Support local farmers.
Works for food and so forth, but not for smart phones, cars, etc, and these major items are all much more valuable than what is made locally. We need to buy local AND buy American to bring back the middle class factory jobs.
Yes. I try to as much as possible.
If not, I buy online and try to patronize the small sellers (third party) on Amazon and Ebay.
You do have to be willing & able to pay a bit more, most times.
If you can do it though, it is important to vote with your dollars.
Money talks.
Before you check on Amazon or Ebay, check Etsy. These are products that are hand made. Ebay sold out the small power sellers in '08 for the big box sellers. I was a casualty of that. In one simple line of code, my products were buried on pages 7 and further in search results, even though I had 100% feedback and nearly 5 star ratings. They destroyed my business with ONE LINE OF CODE.
http://thinkshopbuylocal.com/
Absolutely,.. don't have 2 b isolationists 2 realize that sending most of our $ out of town guts community, & family. $ = power, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely! Proof = Washington. Maybe we should occupy 'K' STREET !? Used 2 shame kids to die in Vietnam,.. "LOVE IT OR LEAVE! can be used on MULTINATIONALS, banners!
The inexpensive noose is hard to break.
I admit I go to amazon prime first for almost anything. I actually once bought a bag of rock salt on amazon prime. How absurd is that?
Local for me is my pharmacy (LOVE my local, non chain pharmacy), "natural" dry cleaners (not sure how "natural" it is really but I am really sensitive to the smell of perc and my clothes don't smell like it from there). We also have a really great local kitchen store.
But these are primarily local services though. The products I get from them are manufactured far away and shipped here just the same or in the case of the clothes shipped off somewhere semi-local for cleaning.
That said a strong community does rely upon having a thriving local business base made up of members of that community. Unfortunately the current economy drives people more toward trying to save a buck. Wait till this year's black Friday frenzy, I predict it will make yesterday's ows protests look like a walk in the park.
Good on you. See http://occupywallst.org/forum/the-power-of-the-people/
EXACTLY.
I think what we need as a country is more unskilled jobs: Cashiers, stock clerks, etc. They’re not great jobs, but they’re jobs. But these small jobs at small businesses were not killed off by Wall Street. We allowed them to wither on the vine, because we thought we couldn’t afford to shop there.
So... how do we turn this around? How do we re-plant the forest of small businesses that we allowed to die? How do we bring the money back into our own community?
How do we re-occupy our own Main Streets?
If you want back UNSKILLED labor, you better get people to stop empowering those that use computers and robots. Press "O" when a computer answers the phone, skip the self-check lane at the local store and use a manned lane instead, etc.
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