Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Will You Shop Local Like President Obama, Or Online?
theodp writes "President Obama and his daughters headed to an indie bookstore last Saturday to promote shopping local. The White House did not disclose which books were bought, but author Lauren Oliver tweeted her delight after a White House photo showed her books Delirium and Pandemonium were among the 15 children's books purchased by the Obama family for Christmas gift-giving. While it made for a nice Small Business Saturday photo op, do you suppose the President paid much more for the books at the small indie bookshop than he might have at an online retailer like Amazon, where the hardcopy edition of Pandemonium is $10.15 (44% off the $17.99 list price) and the hardcopy edition of Delirium can be had for $10.47 (42% off the $17.99 list price)? Kindle Editions of the books are also available for $7.99. And with both titles eligible for free Amazon Prime shipping, the President could've saved on gasoline and Secret Service costs, too! So, will you be following the President's lead and shop local this holiday season, or is the siren song of online shopping convenience and savings too hard to resist?"
No. I'll use my own money. Oh wait. He'll use my money too.
Is this supposed to be a news story, or an excuse to get an Amazon advertisement on Slashdot? That summary only needed a © Amazon PR Department notice at the end.
But I'll bite anyway and offer this perspective: people generally know you can find better deals online; that's not a marvel concept. B&M stores simply can't compete with low overhead online warehouses dollar to dollar. But lower prices are not why people shop local. They shop local because of in-person browsing, personalized services, and loyalty to their community, probably in that order.
Tried shopping local this past week. Fuck that noise. Lied to twice about the physical specifications of my TV. Humans are poorly suited to sell things.
do you suppose the President paid much more for the books at the small indie bookshop than he might have at an online retailer like Amazon
I don't know. Do you? Because if he did, and you could tell us that, you might actually have a point to make. For all we know he might have paid a lot less.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The way the summary was written, the question can be condensed to: "Will you spend more money at a local retailer, or less money and buy online"?
I'm all for supporting local retailers when they provide a valuable service - I visit my local library/store where I can chat to a librarian/store-clerk and get valuable feedback/information. But the article doesn't raise any of these issues. Instead, it focuses on the downsides of brick-and-mortar shopping, without raising any of the positives.
...like mandatory auto insurance regulations of the 80s....
Fuck that. I'll buy from the vendors offering the products I want at prices I agree to. This "buy local" horseshit is nothing but guilt-tripping. Customers aren't property, and if local retailers can't compete, then they shouldn't be in business.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I tried, but my local shop was all out of buggy whips.
And Twinkies.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Obama probably doesn't care that ebooks are a dollar cheaper than dead-tree books, because unlike the vast majority of his constituents, he's loaded.
Also, he's the prez, meaning he probably didn't pay jack squat at the local bookstore he graced with the honor of visiting and bringing free publicity to in the first place.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
What's a... bookstore? Where they sell e-readers?
Shop LOCALLY, FFS. Was that so hard?
Local businesses are at the core of the community. They employ my neighbors and me*. They support local activities and charities. They pay local taxes. I like dealing with them face to face. All of those things and more are worth more to me than saving a few bucks online. I do buy online for things I can't find locally or maybe if the price difference is ridiculous.
* Actually I work for a medium sized multinational corp. but when I started it was a local business that eventually got bought out. We still are active locally.
I feel it's my economic duty to provide accurate and useful signals to the market, so my dollars go to the most efficient and cost effective source that meets my requirements for quality, selection, availability and price. If I need something immediately or I need to touch it before buying, I choose a local supplier offering those benefits. If I don't need those things, I select on the remaining criteria. To choose vendors on arbitrary 'feel good' sloganeering deprives me of the best value and deprives the, perhaps distant, vendor that worked hard to meet my mix of needs of the sale they deserve. It also sends false demand signals to local vendors. However these false signals only serve to distort the market temporarily but otherwise are pointless gestures that, in the long run, achieve nothing and help no one.
...by ordering the stuff online using the WiFi of local businesses.
If a small shopkeeper gets hurt and he has no insurance, then he's bankrupt for sure (or he receives no healthcare, which seems a bit of a weird idea).
If his business is so fragile that a bloody health insurance will bankrupt the company, the he should go bankrupt anyway. How much is a health insurance? 100 euro/month or something?
If it is any more than that, the problem is not with Obama, but with (1) your ridiculously expensive and inefficient healthcare, and (2) the insurance companies.
To increase my chances to meet Mr Obama in person!
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
all others we will pay WITH cash.
And of course, that means shopping locally.
*puts on* tin foil hat and stainless steel back plate, painted with the new camo paint of course.
Dont give the rich your money. Save it all, by only what is necessary and fuck the rich.
health insurance is a lot more expensive than 100 euros/month. Dunno exact prices but I think thousands might be more correct (for family plans at least).
Amazon is fairly ubiquitous now, ditto Walmart, etc. Imho, one should avoid all these companies for numerous reasons. But how?
Enter the numerous Chinese online retailers. End consumers cannot shop at alibaba.com, but anyone can buy those large minimum orders and resell on ebay. One should therefore always search ebay when shopping.
In many product type, there are large scale specialized online retailers that ship direct from China, like dx.com. Now dx.com's prices aren't necessarily better than amazon's across the board, but they commonly obliterate more U.S. resellers when you find your way into some niche products, like electronics components. I always check prices there now as well. Yes, merchandise shipped from China takes bloody ages to arrive, plan ahead man.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Mostly online shopping for me. There's just not enough available locally for acceptable prices...
Regards, Evert Meulie
I'm not independently wealthy, and I don't have a job that pays me $400k/yr on top of that, plus my room and board paid for...
So yeah, I'm going with the Amazon option if I want anything.
Fuck that. I'll buy from the vendors offering the products I want at prices I agree to. This "buy local" horseshit is nothing but guilt-tripping. Customers aren't property, and if local retailers can't compete, then they shouldn't be in business.
-jcr
Whereas I prefer to shop from companies who actually contribute back to the local economy by paying their taxes and not stashing them away in tax havens. If companies have sociopathic policies I try to avoid them.
President Obama loves small businesses so much that he's driving them bankrupt with expensive mandatory health insurance regulations.
Funny how this is suddenly all Obama's fault. Last time I checked that law passed both the House and the Senate before he was allowed to sign it into law. And don't give me that shit about a Democrat majority, the GOP could have filibustered it into the dirt and they did not.
And fuck off when it comes to the budget, the Constitution flat out says it's up to Congress to figure that out, so I don't understand why you mental midgets keep calling it "Obama's Budget" or "Bush's Budget".
And for the record, if you'd bothered to pay ANY attention you'd know that Romney's version was the same exact fucking thing that Obama supported- mandatory insurance. So fuck you and whatever TV show pumps you information up your ass.
As I live in a small rural community in the midwest, I am forced to shop online. Most local stores do not carry many of the items I want. Yes we do have Walmart and Staples. Staples is usually out because of high prices though.
I also do not drive at present. Local public transit leaves much to be desired, and taxi cabs are too expensive. So it is much more convenient to shop online.
Price is another reason that I shop online. Living on a small fixed income is a big challenge in today's economy and I have to get the best prices I can or do without.
It would be nice if shoping local stores was convenient, stores carried mor of the products that I want/need, and I could afford the higher prices.
or the scrooge, whichever you prefer.
Achille Talon
Hop!
While it is cheaper to buy online, it is not always better to do so. I usually buy online only books that I know I already decided to buy.
However I buy more books by visiting physical stores. This is the only place where I can go to and browse through the books, read a few passages, get acquainted with the volume in hand. This process is more important for me than hit-and-run browsing on the internet. Books are tangible goods for me.
I suspect USA president might have visited a bookstore for similar reason (except for PR) - he might have preferred to actually look the book over, decide about the purchase based on physical item, especially with children books.
While travelling to USA I was struck that so many bookshops have closed, starting with Borders. This was always a good place to visit, and I always came out with a handful of books that I would never find&buy otherwise. Now it is much harder to find a bookstore, as even other large chains (or rather the only one - B&N) closed many locations.
Amazon is NOT a competition there for me. I bought relatively few books through them compared to real store (about 1:5 ratio). This is not going to increase with lack of physical stores in USA.
While in my country this is the same - I buy majority of books in real shops, based on browsing. Similar ratio (1:5) is bought online as a result of reviews, recommandations and other sources that make me decide in advance.
Luckily there is no shortage of bookstores where I live, and even with succesfull online retailers they are not going away.
What applies to books does not apply to music or movies - those can be easily searched for, reviewed, listened to and decided upon using online tools, with online purchase of a physical item.
PS: yes, I realise I am in a minority. I realize enough people think differently to me to cause bookstores closing.
I would neither shop locally nor perhaps at Amazon. I would fire up a price search site like www.fetchbook.info and find the cheapest deal, then go for a walk in the near by park.
We have been inventing various things all these decades and centuries to bring in more efficiencies in what we do. Now the President want's us to throw away all those inventions and go to the local store instead!? Is the President turning Amish?
That's why our national debt is WAAAAY down since Bush! Four more years, four more years!!!! No, thats not right... yes we can, yes we can bankrupt the country!!!
Shopping local - which doesn't mean shopping at Wal-Mart - isn't something (smart) poor people can really afford to do any more. The mass producers and "service providers" have been funneling so much of the material wealth in their direction - mere pennies each at a time but multiplied by hundreds of them and tens of millions of blood donors^H^H^H^H^Hcustomers - that when a person is poor there really isn't enough left after the aforementioned get their cuts to share with local mom-and-pop businesses, whose overhead is high and economy of scale very low and who need higher profit margins to justify what they're doing.
This is why poor people shop - and all too often also work* - at Wal-Mart. They don't have the option to shop local like Barack and Michelle.
* It's also worth noting that Wal-Mart KNOWS their employees are also customers: not only does Wal-Mart pay low wages and deliberately toy with hours to keep a third or more of its workforce part-time and ineligible for benefits, it also doesn't offer an employee discount. The end result is that Wal-Mart actually gets back as profit a portion of the low wages it pays its employees.
Umm... ACA doesn't kick in until you have at least 50 employees. To put that in perspective, assuming your store is open 16 hours per day, multiply the number of employees you want in the store at any given moment by 2.8 to compute the number of full-time-equivalent employees. So even a fairly large restaurant with ten or twelve people in it at any given moment still falls well below the 50-employee threshold where the ACA kicks in. A typical bookstore chain falls below the threshold until it has five or six locations....
No, fifty full-time-equivalent employees is just short of a Wal-Mart-sized store. If you're that big, you are not a small business. Period. You're a medium-sized business. You're bringing in at least three-quarters of a million dollars in profit annually just to cover the employee salaries alone, assuming you pay everyone minimum wage, not counting your contributions to FICA, location rent, business insurance, etc. A bookstore making a million bucks a year would have to sell five or six hundred books per day at typical markups to cover those sorts of costs. That's simply not a small business, and anyone who claims that the ACA is going to cause small businesses to go bankrupt is either ill-informed or deliberately distorting reality to promote an agenda.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Fuck that. I'll buy from the vendors offering the products I want at prices I agree to. This "buy local" horseshit is nothing but guilt-tripping. Customers aren't property, and if local retailers can't compete, then they shouldn't be in business.
You need to take an economics class. Its not purely a guilt trip, there is also actual science and math behind spending locally. Sales and marketing people don't have to lie on those rare occasions when the truth is actually on their side. This is one of those. Spending locally can benefit you, or divert harm from you.
Where you spend your money has a multiplier effect on the community you are spending in. You can benefit your community or you can benefit someone else's. Which of the two do you think is more likely to return some benefit to you? Which of the two is more likely impact you when they have to raise property and other taxes as business revenues decline? Communities are a highly complex set of interdependencies. In the 1970s and 80s people didn't think it mattered where they shopped or where things were made. History proves them mistaken.
That's an interesting way to approach life. But let me ask you this: if everyone followed your philosophy, would the world be a better place or worse? Sure, you buying locally will help your local community. But if other people in other communities restrict their shopping to their local shops, wouldn't your local community suffer because it no longer has any markets to export to?
No. Because not everything is made or available locally.
Plus there are little complications such as when price is the only factor in a purchasing decision it destroys competition by favoring larger organizations that can leverage economies of scale, externalize costs (manufacture in regions with poor environmental laws, recognize profits in regions with little to no taxes, etc), engage in monopolistic or other unfair practices, etc.
DISCLAIMER: I live in Silicon Valley.
In fact, with the whole "boo hoo, we want Amazon and online shops to be taxed" thing going on (supposed in an effort to force people to shop at local brick and mortar -- wich are usually NOT mom and pop stores ANYONE), I'm making more of an effort to buy online than ever before (which was already like 95%). I mean, if I'm going to buy things and be taxed directly either way, I might as well at least get it delivered to my doorstep.
Almost all of my shopping (other than groceries) is done via Amazon. I bet I've spent $30k on them in the last eleven years.
This year, I'm only going to post on local blogs ^H^H^H^H NO CARRIER
Remind me again what we call paying more for the same product that everyone else gets a smaller cost?
I wish I were rich enough that a several dollar difference didn't matter.
I am John Hurt.
You the proved the GP's point. The plant you refer to is not a small business.
BTW, everybody is covered in western Europe. Employers do not hire you part time to avoid their healthcare responsibilities as the responsibility is usually with government to provide care, or create a system of cheap insurance for care.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
... and learn to spell.
But they still shaft you. Either you put it in the bank, in which case the rich get to use your money to make more money.
Or you stuff it under the mattress, and the rich steal it off you via the mechanism known as 'increasing the money supply' which serves to devalue the currency.
The best way to fuck the rich is get yourself a boob job and become an escort. Or work to destroy society which will end up creating a different set of rich in the long run.
I shop locally as it helps to support the local economy by employing people, using local services/property, paying taxes and being a part of the community. Often, I can directly see the difference I am making - even if it's a simple smile or thank you. To me, it's an important part of a healthy and vibrant society.
Places like Amazon (et al.) tend to contribute little to the aforementioned and, arguably, actually worsen it due to the fact that they don't have the same costs as an 'offline' shop. There's also the recent tax-avoidance issues where they (Google included) base themselves in a different country thereby avoiding paying taxes in the country -where they are doing business- (see the recent stories discussing this).
There's little wonder why the high street and most shops in general are suffering - how can they possibly compete. For me, if that means spending a bit more so that the local community and shops are able to thrive, then I will. Call it long-term thinking and greed - I want the local shops to stick around. :-)
Hope you enjoy the new europification of employment. Where everyone is part-time.
Tip of the day; Fox News lies.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I salute you and your accomplishment.
You successfully submitted an article about the shopping habits of a very partisan president on a very polarized forum. A president who has very vocally declared war on the rich, despite being rich himself. Has pandered to the lowest and highest rungs while verbally admonishing the highest rung. Has screwed the middle class while vocally defending them, and you submit an article to a very oppositely polarized group bound together by a shaky but strong middle ground and asked us to discuss it.
This is in the same league as the balloon kid prank.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
In Europe, we all have health coverage. We don't have to decide between keeping a finger (that we got cut off through our own inattention in the manufacturing plant) and sending our kids to college, or eating this month.
And we spend less than half per capita what Americans spend on healthcare, partially because we have the bargaining power of an entire government, partially because we're not engaged in an all-out war between insurance providers (who make more money when they deny you care), healthcare providers (who raise their prices because they know they are going to get stiffed by the insurance company half the time) and the patients (who just hope that their treatment is covered on their plan).
Mandatory health insurance is the watered-down weenie policy. Single-payer is the way to go. Why the hell would you enter into a contract with ANY entity that has a vested interest in you dying as quickly as possible?
Not only will I shop like the pres, I will remind all the local businesses that they didn't build their businesses and I will then take more than half the money I pay them back and give it to lazy fucks who watch MTV all day. I'll also make sure that when they die I take half that business and their personal assets away so I can be sure the business owners can't pas their business on to their kids. Someone has to look out for the lazy fucks.
But they still shaft you. Either you put it in the bank, in which case the rich get to use your money to make more money.
Or you stuff it under the mattress, and the rich steal it off you via the mechanism known as 'increasing the money supply' which serves to devalue the currency.
So, in essence, you're playing into their hands by earning it in the first place. A strange game - the only winning move is not to play.
It's quite appealing, but unfortunately I'm a little bit hooked on the things money can buy.
When did the federal government pass mandatory auto insurance? I must have missed that.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
... or perhaps on average that's a very effective way of selling things? It didn't work on you, but it might work on the next two suckers.
Has anyone else noticed that the First Daughters have just had Christmas morning ruined by the press? Where's the fun in unwrapping your gifts when half the country already knows what you got?
Everything you write is true, however, if you use your money to purchase property then you do, ultimately win: no rich stealing people (banks) using your money for their nefarious ends, and no deflation over time. You can purchase property to live on, farm, rent out, or just leave it be as a nature reserve. I've come to the conclusion that it is the only morally acceptable way to sequester my wealth over time.
PS: Bonus points if you *save* to buy the property and purchase it for cash - stops the banks fabricating more money/debt and making even more money from you.
Obama obviously didn't try to bring home a Windows 8 laptop! Stores have display models but no inventory. Bookstores don't have anything I want in the store inventory any longer - I have to order online.
In some places, buying locally just means purchasing goods at a national chain store. For example, If I want to buy a PC video card, I can either go to Best Buy (or maybe Wal-Mart) and pay 20% more or just order it from NewEgg/Amazon/Whoever. Since everyone else went out of business, there are no other options here.
What makes you classify that as small business? Considering the numbers you gave, I don't.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
I'll shop locally, and I'll shop online. Depends on what for. I like to go to bookstores and buy books. I try and stick to the independents when I do so - but I also buy some of my more obscure books, new releases, or e-books online from Amazon. The same holds true for most other purchases. Mostly I use Amazon (or a similar vendor) to buy things that I would otherwise get at a big box retailer. That works pretty well.
The exception is clothing - there isn't much I get from brick & mortar retailers in general. I buy my sportcoats from Jos. A Bank in a nearby strip mall, otherwise I get shirts mainly from LL Bean online and everything else I use for clothes I pretty much order from Duluth Trading. They both have stores, but since I live in Massachusetts rather than Minnesota or Maine, it's a pain to go to them (yes, LL Bean has other stores, but they don't have nearly as much selection).
I'm lucky that we have a downtown with a very good and diverse shopping district, and we can get a lot of the things we want from local merchants at reasonable prices. Yes, I can get better prices online much of the time, but I still like to hand over money for my goods when feasible.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
An individual plan costs $450/mo for a single person. Family plans are higher because they inevitably involve neonatal care or whatever it's called when you have a baby and rack up the bills, so if you've got a woman and she's on your healthcare it's like "oh holy shit this person will eventually knock that bitch up and then we have to pay alimony to support his kid QUICK JACK UP THE COST!" They have to pay those claims somehow.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
I buy local when possible but that is often not an option because things just aren't available. Local bookstores are sparse in number and content. It's a multi-hour drive to most things so that's not local. Online shopping is more efficient and has more options.
We won't be shopping at all. Obama has screwed the economy up so much we can't afford to shop.
Went to a local hardware store (in business since the Civil War) to purchase bullet catches for a woodworking project since I knew that they carried Stanley brand, unlike the local True Value distributor which I was in on Sunday which carries National Hardware --- turns out that Stanley sold their hardware division to National Hardware, so the bullet catches were the same as the ones I'd rejected on Sunday, just in Stanley's black and yellow packaging.
Lowes and Home Depot don't bother w/ much small hardware, so no bullet catches at either when I checked on Sunday.
The only other choice locally (since the last nearby independent woodworking shop closed) is Woodcraft and their inexpensive bullet catches seem to be from the same Pacific Rim factor which makes them for National Hardware so that leaves Brusso catches (too expensive and I want surface mounted strike plates), so I had to order from Lee Valley in Canada (and order strike plates from D. Lawless).
I really regret my father selling his father's anvil --- looks like I'm going to have to take up metal-working to have nice hardware for my woodworking projects.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
And for that matter, fuck Christmas and all the mandatory
"joy" which promotes so much pointless consumption.
Me, I work in a homeless shelter for a week during the holidays.
THAT brings a good feeling to me that money cannot buy.
Whatever Obama does or recommends, I find it advantageous to do precisely the opposite (except for the excessive golf).
55 People sounds like a small business to me. You just happen to agree with the arbitrary government value of small.
+1 Understands Civics
Ironically, the people who tend to blame presidents for legislative moves they don't like are the same ones who refuse to give them credit for things their subordinate executive agencies actually do, like kill OBL.
Blame the Republicans. They could have allowed a single-payer system.
Local businesses do not create diverse and good jobs like Amazon and even Walmart. Big businesses, because of the scale of their operations, require a variety of specialized jobs, ranging from IT, to warehouse management, sourcing, and more. Local businesses often are run by entrepreneurs who are highly limited and selective in their hiring. When Walmart comes to town, they filled many low skilled jobs who otherwise would not even be considered by most "small businesses" here. I have no respect for the need to "shop local" for no particular reason other than "supporting" them. Even big stores such as Borders go bankrupt, why not support them? Businesses die when they cannot fulfill the needs of the people, and better and newer businesses come along and do it better. In the environment of high future and uncertain costs of retirement, healthcare, education, and insurance, there's a real need to buy cheap to save for all these future expenses. It is irresponsible to self and to family not to do so.
Uh, what ? Do you have even the vaguest idea of what employment traditions, standards and laws are like in Europe ?
Here's a hint: "secure jobs for life" isn't something you find right-wing free marketeers fighting for. That's because they're the guys who want employees who can be treated as a number and discarded at will whenever someone cheaper comes along.
You want secure, full-time jobs ? You need to put employees on an equal power footing with employers. The only way to do that on a wide scale is worker unions.
I did go out on Black Friday and did find a pair of beat around shoes for 70% off the normal price, but other than wine from a local vineyard, didn't find anything.
The same with almost every shopping trip, nothing to find. Since I'm not one of the herds of hippos roaming the country, stores refuse to carry clothes in my size. As I don't buy products made in China, that excludes just about every electronic device out there.
Even online the selections are meager. As a result, I have free cash flow and no debt because there's nothing to buy. Pretty soon I'll be relegated to wearing a toga and using chalk boards to communicate.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Uh, the regulations that don't kick in until you have more than 50 employees? Those regulations?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I try to avoid buying stuff during the Black Friday-Christmas period. It's not a total moratorium, though; I'll still buy gasoline and groceries.
Oh no, the horror. Part-time employment. What ever will I do with this time spent outside the workplace. Please, Mashiki, save us all from this horrible fate of leisure.
" the GOP could have filibustered it into the dirt and they did not."
No, they couldn't. The legislation as it exists was passed was passed in two parts. One part was passed through the Senate in the brief period when the Senate had 60 members caucusing with the Democrats. Republicans did not have the votes to stop cloture. The second part was passed under reconciliation which does not require cloture but is limited in scope. That part was basically comprised of tweaks the House wanted to make to the Senate bill. Republicans couldn't do anything about either part of the legislation at the time it was passed.
I can see the HQ from my kitchen table. I can order some things and get them delivered the SAME day.
Starbucks, Costco, Adobe and Micro$oft are also locals.
My web server is in Germany :)
*"Cogito Ergo Liberalis"*
For one thing.
Worst
Idea
Ever.
I shop locally whenever I can and do all I can to support local business for all of the reasons that any minimally educated human human knows are true- help the local economy in my own self interest.
Unfortunately, the large chain stores which can afford mall space have put many small businesses out of business.
The large chain stores NOT in malls use economy of scale to put other small business under.
Sadly, it is very often difficult or impossible to:
a) personally make ends meet when only shopping locally- for some things fuel alone would cost more than the items I need due to lack of a local vendor.
b) obtain the required items for living while avoiding online purchases and national/international chains.
But I do what I can.
The only stuff I buy locally is stuff that I need instantly or can't get on-line, or that I need to physically verify works for my need, or that is somehow cheaper than on-line, or that would be completely inconvenient to get on-line. Usually that means clothes, gas, food and services.
I would rather local businesses be based on offerings that make sense rather than be artificially propped up by a movement that ultimately makes little sense.
In my area there is a huge turnover in storefronts as small businesses start and fail there - because all of the businesses don't make any sense when their clientele are all local but what they offer is stuff that is better to source non-locally. People starting businesses need to catchup to how the world actually works.
It's true that in the US we need small businesses to thrive for our economy to be healthy, but wouldn't it be better all around if the businesses that were thriving were doing so without artifice? I include corporate welfare in this also.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Who needs foreign invaders? See Kelo...
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I love how the knee-jerk reaction to criticism of Obama is "well, Romney would have sucked too!"
Guess what? They both suck. And the longer we buy into the illusion that there is any real substantial difference between the two, the illusion that democracy is working properly despite there being only two viable candidates who do basically the same fucking thing after being elected, the longer we are going to be stuck with a broken political system.
(As for Obama supporting small businesses -- pfffffffft. It's the same thing as Dubya's energy-efficient house. The little personal actions mean next to nothing in light of the greater policy actions he's helped enable. Do people really not understand this?)
Burned my mod points already, but + effing 1. This post hits the nail directly on the head.
Actually, part-time is not really popular nor practiced over here...
And don't give me that shit about a Democrat majority, the GOP could have filibustered it into the dirt and they did not.
It was a democratic super majority. That means they had 60 votes in the senate, so they could end any filibuster. The second time it was voted on, after the Scott Brown election, they only had 59 votes in the Senate. The Democrats used the trick of calling it budget reconciliation to prevent a filibuster.
Retail sales aren't the only type of business... The vendor a business owner I know buys from has 200 employees (and according to the government qualifies as a small business), and his costs are going up because of the ACA. Guess what happens to the prices of the goods he buys from that vendor? And even though he only employs 20 people, he does provide health insurance, and those costs are going sharply up as insurance companies seek income to pay for the increased costs forced on them by the ACA.
And really, it's not all that hard to exceed fifty people for many businesses. I know a another guy that runs an engineering firm that services the local Naval shipyard... he employs over a hundred. Another friend works at an optical lab (that makes glasses for local and regional opticians) and his shop has around sixty at any given time. My mother works for a small private school for the underprivileged that employs around seventy five people... There's a whole lot of business goin' on that many people are ignorant of because it doesn't directly touch their daily lives.
You pay employees out of income, not out of profit. Profit is what's left over *after* you've paid all of your costs.
If you care so much about small businesses, lobby for single payer. The ACA is an abomination, but better than the atrocity it is replacing. Single payer is the only civilized option.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Spot on!
However, that does not exonerate the government for their tremendous waste.
In the U.S. it does not (legally) give them the right to pick winners and losers based on how much someone donated to their party.
It should not excuse them for making themselves mutli-millionaires while blaming millionaires for the problems the government created.
No brain, no pain.
The problem where you (and I) live is population density. There used to be an advantage for a local business that counteracted that; accessibility. That has evaporated. If you have the net and UPS, FedEx or even the mails you're 1-day out from almost anything you need to be. Hell, Amazon shipped me a riding lawnmower under Amazon Prime, meaning, I paid no shipping past my yearly Amazon prime fee. And they still beat the local hardware store on price by hundreds of dollars.
The businesses that will almost always survive include lumberyards, grocery, fuel, doctors, restaurants, mechanics, plumbers, electricians, contractors, bars, feed, ag... businesses along those lines.
Comic stores, bookstores, high end stereo retailers, clothing stores, pet shops, basically any niche business that doesn't have a direct tie to the locality (a rock shop can survive in a rural locality that has unusual and coveted minerals if it is accessible from a well traveled road, for instance)... these are stressed from the moment they open their doors.
We live in a time when the economic position of most people is a lot lower than they would like it to be; to the point where many people have no savings, etc. To expect them to "buy locally" is, I think, a form of mild insanity. Either on the part of the person with such expectations, or on the part of the poor bastard who decides it'd be a good idea, even though they can hardly pay their bills.
Does a small business collapsing hurt the local economy? Not in the long term. If a business can't survive, it's likely to default on debts, dispose of part or all of its inventory at a loss, pay employees less, pay lower taxes, etc.
What a local economy needs isn't a business that depends on nepotism and insularity to survive; it needs businesses that are tuned to address local needs in ways and means that a distant business cannot. This simply does not include retail stores that sell... well, just about anything, unless those things are typically emergency needs -- I really will pay extra for the parts to fix a water leak right now, and sure enough, there are businesses here that are happy to accommodate me, while they do untoward things to my wallet. Because the tradeoff is of the class of being without water for a couple days, or spending an extra $20...$30 for the parts I need locally -- and having the water off for only minutes or hours.
Consequently, I think what you and I will see is an eventual settling out where the wisdom slowly accumulates about what kind of businesses can actually survive in bumfuck, and then we'll see fewer complaints about the local clothing store going out of business; such a business has no more rational place in a rural community today than does a buggy whip manufacturer. The nature of retail has changed, and no amount of insane "buy local" will fix that because it is almost impossible to find a population in a rural area that is able to be unconcerned about spending more money than required to purchase any particular thing.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Who seriously gives a flying shit where the POTUS - any POTUS- shopped, or probably more accurately, arranged a little photo op? I mean, it's well and good and all that Obama is promoting small business, but why not just ask the simple question of whether we'll shop locally or online? What does Obama specifically have to do with it? Did anyone care where GW Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr, Reagan, or Carter shopped? I doubt it.
IOW, can the media just stop fapping over Obama already? What's next, presidential product endorsements? ("President Obama prefers Colgate for that sparkling white smile!") The country and the media has been acting like a bunch of schoolgirls giggling over their teen idol for far too long.
It's embarrassing. He's a politician, not a movie star.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
You realize that businesses of the size you typically find in small towns aren't required to do anything in particular by the ACA, right? You know that there's a threshold of 50 employees below which, the ACA is pretty toothless, right?
Of course you do. You wuz just pulling our legs, you wascal! Making sure we knew that the ACA was very careful about not driving small businesses bankrupt.
You may now crawl back under your bridge, M. Troll.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
That was not "buying local".
It is called "photo op".
1) Mandatory auto insurance is up to each State; not the Federal government
2) Auto insurance is only mandatory of you have a car and drive it on the roads; which makes sense
3) Health insurance is now mandatory if you have a job; which makes absolutely no sense. A job has no direct relationship with personal health. Just goes to show how backwards our laws are. It is like the combination of social security, medicare, medicaid, unemployment insurance, and the minimum wage. They are all in place for the simple reason of getting people enough money to live. Why don't we just wipe those laws out and give people enough money to live?
The physical things I get on line are typically books, movies (DVDs), and music (CDs). I use the Amazon wish list feature to keep track of what I want to get (I pull the trigger when I get to $150 or so of books, etc on my lists) and if I happen to be at Barnes and Noble or other book store, I'll check Amazon and get the stuff at the store. Mostly though I'll get it from Amazon.
Locally I get my board and role playing games because the FLGS has a gaming area and provides a service in addition to the games. I'll even let him order them for me as I generally don't need to get the book right then. I get the PDF of the games from the folks who create it (like Catalyst Game Labs for Shadowrun or Paizo for Pathfinder) and not from a storefront (like DriveThruRPG).
This year I have two big presents I'm getting myself. One is a PA system for my music room. That I already purchased from my FLMS. They had to order the mixer and power amp so they provided a loaner while I was waiting. They also have music instructors in the shop and quite a few guitars for me to play with and occasionally buy. They provide good service and in checking the prices of what they were offering, they matched the online prices in most cases and he kicked $50 off of the mixer over online prices.
The second present is a 4'x8' pool table. It's still a maybe and I'm likely getting it from Craigslist than a local store but using a local pool table moving and setup service to pick it up, tune it, and set it up at my place. I don't know if I'd count that as getting it from on-line though. The problem with big ticket items like that is I'm pretty limited to what the local store is selling and I can get a better deal getting a used one from someone selling their house or otherwise getting rid of a big heavy piece of furniture.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
If insurance companies had designed their business around the actuarial details for the whole population, they would have been able to offer a fair and reasonable product. Unfortunately, short of regulation that forced them to, they didn't do that. Now they will, because although the US has an enormous number of heartless, selfish fucks who are truly so stupid they don't understand that a healthy population is better for everyone, they're finally fading out into the minority, and we finally have a solution — admittedly poor, we'd be far better off without insurance companies at all — but many more people will be able to get healthcare, which is a step in the right direction.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Depending on my mood, what I want, and the price... I bounce between local shops, somewhat local big-box chains, and online.
As for online, sometimes I really don't want the hassle of getting it shipped, potentially damaged, and having to send it back. I'd sometimes rather drive 30min each way and pick it up from a store if the price is around the same.
As for small shops, I've got a bunch near me, near my work, and near my parent's house. There's not enough to buy "everything" (like Computer stuff) but I can get books, home improvement stuff, and even large-electronics at local shops for decent prices. I might save a little money here-and-there if I went to Amazon instead but the local mom-and-pop shops are sometimes quite convenient and I'm helping the community.
But for Xmas things...I just point, click and ship. That makes it SO much easier for me to get my Xmas gifts bought and sent, especially since about 90% of the people I buy for are out of state.
I also appreciate not having to pay the outrageous sales tax locally...almost 10% here.
I buy most all of my large ticket items online...something that is about $2K...I save nearly $200 buying it locally due to no sales tax.
Of course, I will "surely" claim this on my EOY tax forms and pay my use tax....[rolls eyes]
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
A company's profits are used to pay employees wages? I'm thinking companies usually categorize wages under operating expenses.
Did you mean revenue?
"There can be little doubt that union activities lead to continuous and progressive inflation." F. A. Hayek
So for us it'll be local either way. Badumching.
No, I don't get it.
A socialist can point to successful models of socialism. A libertarian can not point to successful models of no government. Your options are democracies of varying degrees of socialism, totalitarian regimes, or, as you put it, local control.
That's not a straw man argument.
BTW, local control doesn't mean no taxes. The warlords want their money too. Probably less likely to build roads with it though.
paintball
>Executive makes $250k a year employing hundreds of employees, he is rich and a blight on society
>President makes $400k a year taking away my freedom, he is a hero and earned his keep
Sure.
Mandatory health insurance is the watered-down weenie policy. Single-payer is the way to go. Why the hell would you enter into a contract with ANY entity that has a vested interest in you dying as quickly as possible?
I don't understand. How does "single payer" change the "vested interest in you dying as quickly as possible?" I don't disagree with single payer, but your statement implies that a single entity wanting you to die is better than multiple entities wanting you to die. It is a non-sequitur, but we have good pizza too.
And don't give me that shit about a Democrat majority, the GOP could have filibustered it into the dirt and they did not.
This is just factually inaccurate. The GOP attempted to filibuster the PPACA, but the Democrats passed it through anyway. Scott Brown explicitly ran on the promise of being the 41st vote that would enable the filibuster for Republicans. By the time he was elected and sworn in, the Senate bill (the one that passed) was already voted on. From about 8 seconds of google: "On December 23, the Senate voted 60–39 to end debate on the bill, eliminating the possibility of a filibuster by opponents. The bill then passed by a vote of 60–39 on December 24, 2009, with all Democrats and two Independents voting for, all but one Republican voting against and one senator (Jim Bunning, R-Ky.) not voting." Also, there's no budget, just a bunch of spending and taxing bills. Taxing bills have to originate in the House, but the President and the Senate have the same veto power. When debating debatable points, at least PRETEND to be charitable to the other side. Historically, Presidents have huge influence on the budget, because they hold veto power and can use their influence to have members of Congress to put forth the President's position, even though they can't introduce legislation directly. Once the President signs a law (as opposed to having a veto over-ridden) it becomes his policy, too.
My fellow Americans, let's restore the death penalty for child rapists. Let's do it . . . for the children.
They didn't have to vote on it (PPACA) a second time. They didn't have the votes to put it through the Senate again, so they had the House pass the exact Senate bill. Then they made a new bill in the House amending what had already been passed, which was a number of tax increases to help offset the cost of the bill. Because this bill raised money, they could pass the amendments using reconciliation, requiring 51 votes.
2 separate bills, passed through the Senate via different means, but they end up with one law. This is not a correction so much as a clarification.
My fellow Americans, let's restore the death penalty for child rapists. Let's do it . . . for the children.
I've gone epub because I have no more room for books in my house. If there wee some simple, cheap metthod of replacing my 5000-odd books with electronic equivalents I'd like to hear about it.
I still like to go to bookstores to browse, to look at the books, to read passages in them, to leaf trough them to see if they're at a sufficient technical level, and so forth. The electronic online stores really don't make this properly available.
That's a service the brick-and-mortar bookstores still excell in.
But I wish I wish I could, after I find the book I want, I could take it to the cash register, pay my money, and have them download it onto my sd card instead of making me carry the paper home. That would be a service well worth paying for.
-- hendrik
You need to take an economics class.
Follow your own advice. Pay attention when they mention the phrase "comparative advantage."
Do you understand that phrase? The theory of comparative advantage was developed for a brick and mortar world. Goods that are imported are still sold by locals in that model. Consumers are *not* buying a product directly from a distant vendor and merely waiting for goods to show up in the mail.
Unfortunately, there IS no "local". Those small bookstores I shopped it in the old days? Long gone. I suppose I could shop at Barnes & Noble, but I wouldn't call them "local".
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I'll always shop locally for books. There online experience doesn't compare to browsing a bookstore.
I'll also particularly support my current local bookstore for their excellent program of sci-fi/fantasy book signings with such authors as Jim Butcher, Patrick Rothfuss, and Brandon Sanderson as regular visitors. In the past year they've also had George R. R. Martin, Cory Doctorow, Kevin Hearne, John Scalzi, Terry Brooks and Orson Scott Card.
They're also pretty popular for signings in other genres. Not bad for a local (well, now regional chain but started here) in a smallish mid-Western/Southern city: Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Lexington, Kentucky.
Amazon can't do that.
"So, will you be following the President's lead and shop local this holiday season, or is the siren song of online shopping convenience and savings too hard to resist?"
I think shopping local is great, and I support many local, independent businesses with my hard-earned cash. But during the holiday shopping season, I suspect the President's shopping experience is far different from mine -- considering I don't have a Secret Service detail to scout ahead to the store(s) I want to visit and clear out any other pesky shoppers so I don't have to stand in interminable lines with the unwashed masses.
So yeah -- at holiday season, I go online.
load "windows7"
My wife and I actually run two websites, one for local artists, artisans and crafters and another for local service businesses, so people in our county can gift shop locally online.
[-- Trust the Monkey --]
What if I'm shopping ordering online from a local company?
No trees were killed to send this message, but a great number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
I pay like 45 dollars per month for health care. Then I also add $500 of my own towards health care expenses. It's an HSA, and it makes a lot of sense.
No trees were killed to send this message, but a great number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
Does Amazon count as 'shopping local' since I live in Seattle?
Sorry, imprecision there. I meant revenue minus cost (of the goods being sold).
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
They go up. But it goes up just as much for that business owner's competition, and since people on the average should have more money in their pockets because of more people with health insurance, it should be roughly a wash, at least in the medium to long term.
Funny, that. The insurance companies kept telling everyone that if you required everyone to have insurance, the costs should go down. Instead, they're using it as an excuse to profit. And this is why for-profit healthcare is a bad idea. None of this would be happening if the Republicans had allowed the Democrats' original proposal to pass (single-payer with a public option). But no. They insisted on an individual mandate with for-profit insurance companies. And then immediately started campaigning against it. But I digress.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
At least buy local to be green. The majority of comments here seem to be stressing the importance of buying local so your local community thrives and discussing the economics of the situation. There's little on the externality of pollution costs via transportation. Granted you can't buy a lot of things that are locally made, thanks to Walmart, cheap overseas labor etc.. But if your groceries come from a local farm instead of being shipped 3000km, that's a net gain and the greener option. Buy your stuff from a farmer's market (all local) instead of having your goods shipped from another country.
Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
Will I shop local?
I don't know, where does Amazon ship from?
Profit is income minus expenses, labor is an expense, just saying.
was because the corporations who's backsides some people have their noses embedded in, sucked at doing it.
what's shopping online to destroying the world...
Well of course I'm going to buy local. And you should too, wherever you are.
Use them or lose them. And by "them" I don't just mean the little shops, I mean the entire fricking economy.
I'll shop from Tanzania, and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. And also buy my medical supplies through a holographic replicator, and also buy shoes from Morocco, pants exclusively from Ukraine, and ear plugs from Sweden (I do love club music. but boy do they play a bit too much of it up there, so they must have some world class ear plugs)... I also plan on purchasing pewter dishes from that long lost country, Pewterland, and my Vulcan Mind Meld trainer from the CIA's real base in Namibia (We KNOW you're aliens, and we know Namibia stands for New Agency Men In Black Is Alive).... DC's reconstructed already, they didnt understand Cuba had already been DC once, so their attempts to 'relocate' DC again were thwarted (You're welcome), so now we have a REAL CIA I'll be buying my spy goods from. Furthermore, I'm going back to a paperless paper system, and going to have all my statements sent to me in a hologram, which will seem real, but still be paperless,since it's all electronic. ANd of course, I'll buy the best watch in the world from Switzerland. IT's the Swatch watch, of course. I'll purchase my real dolls, of course, from the US, we do have the most fantastic looking selection of women on the planet, and I'll rotate through them as I usually do. The Stepford Wives aint got nothing on DirectBuy's selection of Prime US grade 'A' female slaves, that's fo sho!
No. We pay less in Europe because we are treated by government owned healthcare system which don't keep people alive but treat them to death. Heart conditions aren't noticed before it is too late and there are no many heart transplants. Diabetes is managed with dead-end and bad treatments like insulin etc. The treatments cost less because we are treated to death by goverment-sponsored health tyranny and not kept alive. Ever heard of psychiatry? Just be paranoid if you smoke or drink alcohol or don't understand to live 100% healthy.
And the drugs given to the sick are just garbage. Antihistamines instead of reducing receptor densities with histamine or other stimulants (tofu and red wine contains histamine). The aim is not to keep people alive and it makes system more "efficient", standard doctors in public health system is not going to fix you but hook you into medicines that cannot fix anything and it isn't only cost issue, it could be less costly to inject people with histamine and be done with it than keep killing people with histamine receptor blockers.
If the single player is the government, in theory, they represent your interests. You voted them in and can hold them accountable. I agree, this picture is a bit rose-tinted, but as a ex-doctor employed by the NHS, I can at least tell you that the rank and file are all most certainly on your side.
Since they are not a private company, they are also not bound by the law to maximise their profit margins - so there is at least a chance that they are batting on your team, rather than a legal mandate that they must do their utmost to deny you as much healthcare as possible.
If anything, the system is biased towards keeping people alive longer - the ageing population means that the grey vote gains power every year.