How do you support your local economy?

[Crew Chief]

Originally Posted by Ohioan58

This points to a key problem with locally purchased goods: they don't fit the budgets of most families.

DLM is hideously expensive. Well, it's reasonable for what you actually get, but most people do not hold out for butcher cuts of meat at the standards of DLM meat. The pizzas made in the deli at the south store are absolutely fantastic and incredibly cheap. That last item kills me and I don't understand why they don't charge more, but DLM freshly made pizza is one of the biggest bargains in Warren County.

But DLM is not practical for the vast majority of people for most items. DLM sells most commodity national brand items at full list price, or up to 2x what you see chains sell things for.

DLM does keep an awful lot of people employed, though. That is where their prices come into play - service level. In a way their prices are a subsidy for the local area.

Ohioan58, there's not a lot of margin in groceries. And there's no way ANY store could stay in business if they were much higher than their local competitors. What DLM does is reward loyalty. VERY well. The more you buy, the better deals you get. We buy ALL of our groceries there and, at the end of the year, don't spend any more than we would at any of their competitors. Granted, we eat well and only buy for two adults and a cat. But even if we had kids and stuck to more basic foods, we still feel that we're coming out ahead. (FWIW, We like the pizza better at the Springboro store than the pizzas at our Washington Square store.)

[Peregrine]

Originally Posted by Ohioan58

I think that it is a kind gesture to not kick local merchants in the balls by always overlooking them in favor of chains or to shave a few pennies. I simply don't see how it would raise a local economy even if every single local resident were committed to buying locally.

I think you're missing the point. Many of us want to support SMALL business. The mom and pop hardware store instead of Home Depot. Not ONLY buying food grown here. Yea I pay an extra nickel for a toilet flapper, made in China, because I want to support Joe Blow's Hardware store. So he can reamin open and not close and not be yet another emty storefront, not be yet another store shut down by a Wal-Mart/Target/Home Depot....

Not to mention for the convenience.. it really is quicker.

Buying US made is probably a more effective tactic, overall.

Which I try to do as well.

[Ohioan58]

Originally Posted by Peregrine

Many of us want to support SMALL business. The mom and pop hardware store instead of Home Depot. Not ONLY buying food grown here. Yea I pay an extra nickel for a toilet flapper, made in China, because I want to support Joe Blow's Hardware store. So he can reamin open and not close and not be yet another emty storefront, not be yet another store shut down by a Wal-Mart/Target/Home Depot....

Absolutely, that is a good thing.

What I mean is that in the aggregate - overall - most people have no way of throwing 100% of their household purchases (or even 50%) into the local small business economy. Because the breadth and depth of the products offered by local merchants usually can't compete.

I'm saying that the two remaining hardware stores in my town probably together are capable of moving only a tiny dollar fraction of the big dumb Wal-Mart+Lowe's+Home Depot's merchandise. Even if everyone in town bought everything they possibly could from the local merchants.

I'll buy everything I can from the local guys, and more so now that I have read this thread, but I have a sense of futility about it.

[Cleveland_Collector]

Originally Posted by RememberMee

There is no local economy to support, don't delude yourself.

I don't think there can be a more false statement than this.

Money leave the town as soon as SS and (un)employment checks arrive. To pretend that you support "local economy" when virtually all your life necessities are procured from suppliers located 1000+ miles away is beyond rational. Everything is super specialized and inter-connected. So what if you'll get a haircut from a local barber? That means only that money would leave the town 1 day later. It doesn't make any damn difference.

How do you figure? Does the barber have an online gambling problem or something? You can talk "supply chain" all you want. However, when you do, don't forget that profit is also made on the procured goods at every level of that chain. From this, rent is paid, supplies are purchased, cars are bought, utility bills are paid, taxes are paid, bank deposits are made, etc., etc., etc. It can easily be argued that most of the money stays local for a long, long time.

Just look at the decaying Ohio towns. They were a part of the global supply chain in the past. Now, to maximize bottom line of top 1% they and their populace are written off the global economy balance sheets. They don't have any local economy to speak of, they cannot have any local economy because they need to procure raw materials and Capital from outside to launch anything (including barber shops). If you import raw materials and Capital, you must export something in return. Local barber shops are possible only and only because influx of SS and unemployment checks from outside. The end.

Nobody in Ohio has a job? I don't disagree that losing 1/2 the manufacturing base over the past has hurt Ohio severely. That doesn't mean that there is nothing left to support. Quite the contrary, actually.

In 98% of cases, "local economy" are unessential & superfluous businesses skimming SS checks that you can very well live without.

What is it with you and SS checks? Do you really think there is no other income than from government sources?

Yes, they sorta impose a vanity tax on people with excess of disposable cash (including deluded cash mobs), other than than they serve little purpose. No way no how those businesses can provide for life necessities of the local "communities". The essence of local economy - providing for local survival basics.

Then I guess everywhere in the modern world is screwed then because, outside of the non-industrialized world, no local economy directly supplies all or even close to all of its consumer's life necessities.

[Ohioan58]

"RememberMee's" point comes off as obnoxious.

But when he says "there is no local economy to support" here is what I come up with in my SW Ohio small town: what is the total number of individuals, including owners and local investors, who are supported (have their wages paid by) by local businesses?

The last census says that this town has just under 21K population. Let's see - we have two local hardware stores - maybe 20 in total people are supported full time by these two stores. Local restaurants: maybe 20, each of which with 10 employees or less on average, and one with a crew of a couple of dozen. No local groceries, unless you count carry-outs with 5 or fewer employees per location. Let's add in florists, specialty stores like western wear dealers, antique shops.

So I come up with a few hundred employees of locally owned businesses in a town of 21,000. Maybe 500 tops. So that's roughly one person out of every 40 local residents who works at a locally owned business.

Most of these businesses already have income or else they would not exist, ergo they already have a customer base that supports them. A "buy local" campaign is probably a windfall for a few of these businesses and probably increases their bottom line by a small amount, which then goes into the owner's pockets. It will not go into hiring unless the owners see a permanent positive change in business. And a lot of these businesses - such as antiques - represent goods that most individuals do not have an ongoing need for.

My conclusion: buy local is a feel good gesture. Honorable and nice. Not terribly effective. The structure of the overall economy is oriented toward massive interconnections and non regionality.

[Cleveland_Collector]

Originally Posted by Ohioan58

"RememberMee's" point comes off as obnoxious.

It's not only obnoxious, it's wrong.

My conclusion: buy local is a feel good gesture. Honorable and nice. Not terribly effective. The structure of the overall economy is oriented toward massive interconnections and non regionality.

This is not exactly a profound conclusion. However, it doesn't discount the net effect of maintaining local business storefronts by offering them your business. The City of Cleveland and its surrounding area has THOUSANDS of locally owned businesses. They range from mom-and-pop shops and restaurants to grocery store chains to garden centers to small machine shops to machine manufacturers to engineering firms to large factories to etc., etc., etc. They employ tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of people and contribute greatly to the local economy. It really doesn't matter if some or most the raw materials they use come from somewhere else. It's not a feel good gesture. It's a key component of maintaining your economic viability. Not everyone (or even close to that) works for/sources from a huge, out of state/country monolith.

[Mahoning Valley Cash Mob]

It's our understanding that Buffalo, NY organized the first cash mob event in August, 2011. Cleveland didn't organize theirs until November, 2011.

[Peregrine]

A gentleman in NY did indeed do the first cash mob.
A Cleveland man also had the same idea and started the concept of doing it regularly.
The myriad cash mobs that spun off from that were spun off from the Cleveland one.
The guy who started the Cleveland one does credit the Buffalo guy with being the inventor of the idea....the guy in Buffalo credits the guy in CLE.
lol

I will try to find the article that talked about all this...

//edit
http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/...nt?oid=2855327