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You are missing my point and question. The question is whether it makes personal financial sense. If it's "even if" then does it still make much financial sense?
Another one of my 'game theory' conundrums. it CAN be good for you personally, IF enough other people (and specifically your employer and/or your customers) also do it.
The problem of course is that you start from a position of uncertainty where you don't know whether enough of the right people will positively reinforce your actions.
This is one reason living wages are important; without them, consumers are unable to achieve the critical mass of spending required to make shopping local a win-win for the community.
This is one reason living wages are important; without them, consumers are unable to achieve the critical mass of spending required to make shopping local a win-win for the community.
This is a very good point. If a 'living wage' is factored by the cost of groceries using big box stores, then someone on the strict 'living wage' won't be able to shop the locally owned business.
This is where ethics and business clash. Hopefully one day people will realize what buying the cheapest crap provided to you does to the economy. Americans want products to be cheap, no matter what the costs. Even if its at the expense of their own jobs. Slavery made products cheap and affordable too in its day. Then finally people woke up to the fallacies of such a system. Today we have foreign workforces make our cheap crap in sweat shops for pennies on the dollar. The difference here of course is we don't see these people and the conditions they are being placed in.
If you believe in buying the cheapest product you can find, at whatever expense...then you deserve the economy that we are in. And here in a few minutes, someone will post an article about the growing wealth gap and ask whats causing it.
You are missing my point and question. The question is whether it makes personal financial sense. If it's "even if" then does it still make much financial sense?
It's a complex economic problem that depends upon a few things:
1-how much more are people spending (local v. national)?
2-what are the economic multipliers for shopping national and shopping local in that particular store?
3-how likely is local money recirculation likely to benefit the person making the purchase?
The concept behind shopping local is to keep more money in the local economy, with the idea being that if I spend $10 locally, maybe $6 of that is reinvested in local businesses while $4 goes to pay off national vendors of my point of purchase. That $4 gets sucked out of the local economy, where it can't be taxed or spent again. The $6 can be spent at my business, my friend's business, used in part to buy a home locally, taxed to support local schools and parks, etc.
If I shop at a national chain, 9 out of 10 bucks will end up getting sucked up to corporate or spent to national vendors where it can't be spent again at my business or it can't be taxed again to support my local community.
Another one of my 'game theory' conundrums. it CAN be good for you personally, IF enough other people (and specifically your employer and/or your customers) also do it.
The problem of course is that you start from a position of uncertainty where you don't know whether enough of the right people will positively reinforce your actions.
This is one reason living wages are important; without them, consumers are unable to achieve the critical mass of spending required to make shopping local a win-win for the community.
It doesn't have to depend on other peoples actions. You live your life. It seems like jealousy comparison mentality. I tend to buy the best value for the money, local or not. And I do not conform with the cultural elitism that has become much of shopping decisions.
I don't have a problem with other people spending specially on local.
You are missing my point and question. The question is whether it makes personal financial sense. If it's "even if" then does it still make much financial sense?
Were you paid to post this? If not then it makes no financial sense .
It's a complex economic problem that depends upon a few things:
1-how much more are people spending (local v. national)?
2-what are the economic multipliers for shopping national and shopping local in that particular store?
3-how likely is local money recirculation likely to benefit the person making the purchase?
The concept behind shopping local is to keep more money in the local economy, with the idea being that if I spend $10 locally, maybe $6 of that is reinvested in local businesses while $4 goes to pay off national vendors of my point of purchase. That $4 gets sucked out of the local economy, where it can't be taxed or spent again. The $6 can be spent at my business, my friend's business, used in part to buy a home locally, taxed to support local schools and parks, etc.
If I shop at a national chain, 9 out of 10 bucks will end up getting sucked up to corporate or spent to national vendors where it can't be spent again at my business or it can't be taxed again to support my local community.
I live in the suburb where there aren't many locally owned businesses.
This is where ethics and business clash. Hopefully one day people will realize what buying the cheapest crap provided to you does to the economy. Americans want products to be cheap, no matter what the costs. Even if its at the expense of their own jobs. Slavery made products cheap and affordable too in its day. Then finally people woke up to the fallacies of such a system. Today we have foreign workforces make our cheap crap in sweat shops for pennies on the dollar. The difference here of course is we don't see these people and the conditions they are being placed in.
If you believe in buying the cheapest product you can find, at whatever expense...then you deserve the economy that we are in. And here in a few minutes, someone will post an article about the growing wealth gap and ask whats causing it.
I'm thinking more of what the OP mentioned and that is farmers markets. I can go to my local grocery store (or even Wal-Mart) and get Colorado grown vegetables for X price or I can go to the local farmers market and buy the same Colorado grown vegetable (probably a different farm) for a significantly higher price of Y. Now, why would I buy from the farmer's market when the grocery store is a significant savings? One reason is because you can support the local farmer directly and the profit margin is probably a lot higher for the farmer selling it to you versus the farmer selling their vegetables to the grocery store. Of course, I've seen multiple instances where the person selling the vegetables at the market are not the farmer and just reselling.
It's a complex economic problem that depends upon a few things:
1-how much more are people spending (local v. national)?
2-what are the economic multipliers for shopping national and shopping local in that particular store?
3-how likely is local money recirculation likely to benefit the person making the purchase?
The concept behind shopping local is to keep more money in the local economy, with the idea being that if I spend $10 locally, maybe $6 of that is reinvested in local businesses while $4 goes to pay off national vendors of my point of purchase. That $4 gets sucked out of the local economy, where it can't be taxed or spent again. The $6 can be spent at my business, my friend's business, used in part to buy a home locally, taxed to support local schools and parks, etc.
If I shop at a national chain, 9 out of 10 bucks will end up getting sucked up to corporate or spent to national vendors where it can't be spent again at my business or it can't be taxed again to support my local community.
Quote:
Originally Posted by headingtoDenver
I'm thinking more of what the OP mentioned and that is farmers markets. I can go to my local grocery store (or even Wal-Mart) and get Colorado grown vegetables for X price or I can go to the local farmers market and buy the same Colorado grown vegetable (probably a different farm) for a significantly higher price of Y. Now, why would I buy from the farmer's market when the grocery store is a significant savings? One reason is because you can support the local farmer directly and the profit margin is probably a lot higher for the farmer selling it to you versus the farmer selling their vegetables to the grocery store. Of course, I've seen multiple instances where the person selling the vegetables at the market are not the farmer and just reselling.
The profit margin is a lot higher. That makes it much less competitive unless the quality is much higher.
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