Wal-mart continues to claim to be the "low price leader", but we often forget what that has meant for small businesses across our nation and the impacts that has had on world trade policy. True terrorist events are meant to exact a toll of fear. The mayhem and carnage that we all see outwardly are not the true intent behind the acts. What the perpetrators seek is constant fear, continual dis-ease and costly re-action to the random events. This, in fact, is what many businesses do day in and day out around the planet. Unlike Henry ford, who believed that it was his responsibility to pay his employees enough that they could afford to buy his product, the Wal-marts of the world, Aldi Markets, Best Buy, and nearly all the big box stores have the complete opposite approach. One of the largest costs for business has been labor, at least since the advent of labor unions. Whether one believes it or not, there is a war between those who have capital and those who do not.
This is an age where the wealthiest among us are nearly invisible. On the street, we see the 99%, going about the business of "making their living". What we do not see is the massive flow of wealth upward. The oligarchs live is sequestered compounds, far from the terror that they perpetrate on the rest of society. The only reason most people have for shopping at these sorts of places is because they are fearful of not being able to make ends meet. I have heard the same tired argument from both educated and uneducated folks, extremely poor, moderately poor and borderline middle class people, even from people who should know better. They say, "As soon as I make enough money to afford it, I will stop shopping there." Meanwhile all the local mom and pop shops are closing and there will be no alternative if and when their ship comes in. Where most terrorists face a marginalized existence and abject poverty, greatly limiting their resources, economic terror is funded by the very people who it attacks.
Let me start with a related story about wealth generally. Years ago, I met a man from New Zealand. He came to our country to make his fortune. Many places around the globe have the Lazerwash car washes, he was the lead designer and his team designed them. He amassed enough wealth that when he put his dollars in the bank, the difference between what they earned from his money (interest they made on loans backed by those dollars) and the money they paid him as interest (about half the rate that they charged borrowers) amounted to roughly the same amount as the bank manager's annual salary. Needless to say, this gave him quite a bit of clout down at the bank. I only mention this because it relates directly to leverage. Because this guy had more money than he knew what to do with, the bank nearly fell over itself trying to make him happy, lest they lose his business (dollars). If a person really needs the money, banks don't like to work with them, but if they really don't need the money, it seems that they fall all over themselves trying to offer competitive rates, sweeten the pot and make it easier for these high end customers.
There are endless stories about how the Wal-marts of the world do business. It has become an undeniable fact that they are the biggest single supplier of organic milk in the world. They turn to the organic milk producers and say, if you want to sell, this is what we will pay and when the suppliers get desperate enough, they will make whatever sacrifices they have to to get the contract, hoping top make up the difference on volume. There has been a slow and wrenching transformation of the American marketplace and I am sure that this is true around the world. In the fifties and sixties, American made meant something. It meant that things were built well, the workers were paid well and the heavy industry that supported the manufacturing was robust and, for the most part, unregulated. Sadly this led to gross waste, fraud and abuse of the very term American made. We have stooped so low now, that even a product wholly assembled in another country can be called American made if a single change has been made to it here.
Briggs and Straton and Tecumseh are two relatively well-known American manufacturers of small engines. When Wal-mart came to them (at nearly the same time) and said, "We want you to be the sole manufacturer for our line of lawn mowers." Some would say that they were shopping around. This makes sense in the business world because if there is profit just lying around capitalist principles say it is "good business" to capture it. I get that. Where these sorts of companies get ugly is the very next step. I'm not sure how it went down at Tecumseh, but at Briggs they asked how many engines do you need? The number that really got them excited was what seemed unimaginable. Of course, if you could land a giant fish like this, not only would you be able to expand, sell all the excess inventory and pay off outstanding debt, but this contract could send you to Easy street, right? Wrong, the other foot had not yet dropped. Part of negotiations is agreeing on price. It seemed that the giant corporation needed a twenty dollar per unit price break, or they would go to their competitor. Instead of giving people what they can make a living on, the rationale is always the same. "You will make it up on the back end." By increasing volume, you can afford to give a portion of your profit margin away, TO US!
Supplier after supplier has had to face the squeeze of these big box retailers. Exploitation and playing out this same power and control scenario tens of thousands of times has allowed the corporados to amass a giant war chest. In the end, they can always use the hole card of procuring products from places like China, where most of their cheap crap comes from anyway. The method is the same no matter who you talk to. When I was a child, you could walk to any one of a dozen bicycle shops around town and when you bought a bike, tire or a tube, half the price went into the pocket of a local guy, who would spend it at a local bank or grocery store. Each time half the money would go to the local guy who again would recycle it through the local economy. Many of the manufacturers and businesses had other local ties as well, founded perhaps on convenience, but ultimately helping the community to thrive. The biggest retailers today have us convinced that their hundred dollar bikes will make it possible for us to live the good life for less. Now, I have to walk five miles to get an inner tube or tire, how is that making my life better? All those small bike shop owners who went out of business, their lives got worse. The fear of paying too much leads many to patronize the merchants of death, of strife and of economic collapse, not because they actually have to, but because they know no other way to feel good about their stagnant wages and the crippling effects of laws and regulations specifically designed to destroy unions.
The same people who bring you "lowest prices, guaranteed" also know that the vast majority of their customer base will never shop around. I have learned dozens of reasons to detest these sorts of places but first among them is the inhumanity of their approach to labor. Not only do they exploit their own people, forcing them into poverty and giving them just enough to keep them coming back, but they exploit their suppliers, local governments and customers through every sort of deception you can imagine. Every single time they open their cash register or swipe a debit card a micro blast takes place across the land killing the hope of recovery wiping out the possibility of living a life without the fear of poverty. There are ecological reasons to detest these corporate overlords, there are economic reasons to stop them in their tracks and there are humanitarian reasons to end the age of bigger is better. Just try negotiating with these folks. They know that they hold all the cards and if they cannot subject you to their forms of slavery, and they are many, they will not deal with you at all. To those who say, "When I make enough money, I'll stop shopping there." I say, by the time that happens all the local businesses will be out of business. The thirty bike shops that used to exist in our town provided jobs, training and customers for other products and services, the three that are left are only hanging on because some people still care about quality and service.
This is an age where the wealthiest among us are nearly invisible. On the street, we see the 99%, going about the business of "making their living". What we do not see is the massive flow of wealth upward. The oligarchs live is sequestered compounds, far from the terror that they perpetrate on the rest of society. The only reason most people have for shopping at these sorts of places is because they are fearful of not being able to make ends meet. I have heard the same tired argument from both educated and uneducated folks, extremely poor, moderately poor and borderline middle class people, even from people who should know better. They say, "As soon as I make enough money to afford it, I will stop shopping there." Meanwhile all the local mom and pop shops are closing and there will be no alternative if and when their ship comes in. Where most terrorists face a marginalized existence and abject poverty, greatly limiting their resources, economic terror is funded by the very people who it attacks.
Let me start with a related story about wealth generally. Years ago, I met a man from New Zealand. He came to our country to make his fortune. Many places around the globe have the Lazerwash car washes, he was the lead designer and his team designed them. He amassed enough wealth that when he put his dollars in the bank, the difference between what they earned from his money (interest they made on loans backed by those dollars) and the money they paid him as interest (about half the rate that they charged borrowers) amounted to roughly the same amount as the bank manager's annual salary. Needless to say, this gave him quite a bit of clout down at the bank. I only mention this because it relates directly to leverage. Because this guy had more money than he knew what to do with, the bank nearly fell over itself trying to make him happy, lest they lose his business (dollars). If a person really needs the money, banks don't like to work with them, but if they really don't need the money, it seems that they fall all over themselves trying to offer competitive rates, sweeten the pot and make it easier for these high end customers.
There are endless stories about how the Wal-marts of the world do business. It has become an undeniable fact that they are the biggest single supplier of organic milk in the world. They turn to the organic milk producers and say, if you want to sell, this is what we will pay and when the suppliers get desperate enough, they will make whatever sacrifices they have to to get the contract, hoping top make up the difference on volume. There has been a slow and wrenching transformation of the American marketplace and I am sure that this is true around the world. In the fifties and sixties, American made meant something. It meant that things were built well, the workers were paid well and the heavy industry that supported the manufacturing was robust and, for the most part, unregulated. Sadly this led to gross waste, fraud and abuse of the very term American made. We have stooped so low now, that even a product wholly assembled in another country can be called American made if a single change has been made to it here.
Briggs and Straton and Tecumseh are two relatively well-known American manufacturers of small engines. When Wal-mart came to them (at nearly the same time) and said, "We want you to be the sole manufacturer for our line of lawn mowers." Some would say that they were shopping around. This makes sense in the business world because if there is profit just lying around capitalist principles say it is "good business" to capture it. I get that. Where these sorts of companies get ugly is the very next step. I'm not sure how it went down at Tecumseh, but at Briggs they asked how many engines do you need? The number that really got them excited was what seemed unimaginable. Of course, if you could land a giant fish like this, not only would you be able to expand, sell all the excess inventory and pay off outstanding debt, but this contract could send you to Easy street, right? Wrong, the other foot had not yet dropped. Part of negotiations is agreeing on price. It seemed that the giant corporation needed a twenty dollar per unit price break, or they would go to their competitor. Instead of giving people what they can make a living on, the rationale is always the same. "You will make it up on the back end." By increasing volume, you can afford to give a portion of your profit margin away, TO US!
Supplier after supplier has had to face the squeeze of these big box retailers. Exploitation and playing out this same power and control scenario tens of thousands of times has allowed the corporados to amass a giant war chest. In the end, they can always use the hole card of procuring products from places like China, where most of their cheap crap comes from anyway. The method is the same no matter who you talk to. When I was a child, you could walk to any one of a dozen bicycle shops around town and when you bought a bike, tire or a tube, half the price went into the pocket of a local guy, who would spend it at a local bank or grocery store. Each time half the money would go to the local guy who again would recycle it through the local economy. Many of the manufacturers and businesses had other local ties as well, founded perhaps on convenience, but ultimately helping the community to thrive. The biggest retailers today have us convinced that their hundred dollar bikes will make it possible for us to live the good life for less. Now, I have to walk five miles to get an inner tube or tire, how is that making my life better? All those small bike shop owners who went out of business, their lives got worse. The fear of paying too much leads many to patronize the merchants of death, of strife and of economic collapse, not because they actually have to, but because they know no other way to feel good about their stagnant wages and the crippling effects of laws and regulations specifically designed to destroy unions.
The same people who bring you "lowest prices, guaranteed" also know that the vast majority of their customer base will never shop around. I have learned dozens of reasons to detest these sorts of places but first among them is the inhumanity of their approach to labor. Not only do they exploit their own people, forcing them into poverty and giving them just enough to keep them coming back, but they exploit their suppliers, local governments and customers through every sort of deception you can imagine. Every single time they open their cash register or swipe a debit card a micro blast takes place across the land killing the hope of recovery wiping out the possibility of living a life without the fear of poverty. There are ecological reasons to detest these corporate overlords, there are economic reasons to stop them in their tracks and there are humanitarian reasons to end the age of bigger is better. Just try negotiating with these folks. They know that they hold all the cards and if they cannot subject you to their forms of slavery, and they are many, they will not deal with you at all. To those who say, "When I make enough money, I'll stop shopping there." I say, by the time that happens all the local businesses will be out of business. The thirty bike shops that used to exist in our town provided jobs, training and customers for other products and services, the three that are left are only hanging on because some people still care about quality and service.
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