On 8/5/2013 2:41 AM, scott wrote:

> A long time ago you could only buy local, between then and now (when
> there was plenty of choice) everyone has voted with their wallets that
> they would rather buy the cheaper non-local mass-produced items. Large
> corporations are simply providing us with what we want. If they thought
> everyone wanted local items (and were happy to pay a premium), they'd
> sell local items.
>
No, they won't. Those corporations didn't just edge out small businesses 
by selling non-local goods. Most local businesses, with the exception of 
food providers, or other "immediate sale" types, ordered parts, or 
goods, had them shipped to them, in smaller, more expensive, volumes, or 
special ordered them, and then you waited. The big corporations could do 
"volume" purchases, hire their own, lower paid shippers, then undercut 
the prices of the local sellers, even selling the **exact identical 
items**. There was no where that low sales, non-bulk, often 'special 
order' businesses could cut their own costs enough, to compete with 
someone that could ship in 50 of something, sit them on a shelf for six 
months, and sell them at 20% lower cost (because they bought more of 
them at a time, from the manufacturer). **While** they did this, they 
also then, to cut into everyone else's business even more, started 
offering, "lower cost, adequate, but not the same, quality", products, 
made in places where it cost far less to make them. By the time nearly 
everything places like Walmart where selling was total crap, there where 
no more "locals" to buy from, either in terms of stores, who could 
compete, or the manufacturing, to get better products from.

Its the #1 way to kill competition - drive them out of business. The #2 
way is, buy them up, then sell the parts. And, they did a lot of that 
too. Crushing whole companies, firing their workers, then shipping 
production to other countries, in order to both "acquire", and "destroy" 
competition, in the same move.

>> But, at this point. People need better pay,
>
> Just wait, the gradient of average GDP increase (in real terms) has been
> a steady doubling every 15 years since about 1850, and has shown no
> signs of slowing.
>
And, in the last 15 years, the minimum wage has gone up $0, inflation 
has grown by almost the same rate and GDP, and the amount paid, on 
average, to CEOs, and other top people, has increased anywhere from 5, 
to 50 times, in the same time frame. Oh, right, and the number of middle 
wage jobs and halved, while the "minimum wage", and other low end jobs, 
have more than doubled.

About the only thing they haven't done, so far, is go before congress, 
and say, "Well, if they can't afford bread, then let them eat cake!"

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