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Idea for: Economic opportunity
Support your local businesses Small towns can wither and die. We need to support the local people who run our businesses and sustain our communities. A few decades ago when I moved to town we had several shoe stores, several clothing stores for both genders, several drug stores, and a book store. A number of locally owned restaurants have disappeared as well. Nationwide franchises have squeezed many of them out. A plague is the arrival of the box stores where virtually everything can be purchased. We currently have two and already a third has perished. Now we have another even larger one coming in that will kill off even more locally owned stores as well as another big box. Why can't we support our own merchants who have spent their lives in our own communities? What seems to be happening is taking place all over our nation. Franchises, box stores, and the chase to the big mall in larger towns all contribute to the disappearance of the locally owned business community. And this can only hurt our towns. From Lowell Liedman of New Ulm, MN on 05/29/05
Rating:  Don't forget that supporting your local small business is more than shopping there. Support laws that truly support small businesses, it's way more than tax cuts. We will be the third generation to run to have to work two jobs in order to get health care insurance. Can't afford it otherwise. We need to end the 20 year corporate give-away and billionaire loop-hole era that we've been in. Support local business, the American Dream. From ShannaLee Horvik of Lake Nebagamon, WI on 09/23/08 Rating: Comming from the Iron Range I have lived in both small and big towns. I wish I could have stayed in Tower, But how can a young person stay where there is no work. All of my freinds and I joined the Unions in the Twin Cities and left home. We go home to fish and hunt, see our grandparents and parents, but I for one would give up all the crappy stripmalls and Home Depots for the woods in my back yard. Real woods not your 300,000 dollar trailor park in suburbia. From Jesse Dahl of St. Cloud, MN on 08/01/05 Rating:  You may not believe this when you finish reading my comments, but I am very pro small business. I owned a retail shoe store in the 80s and learned very quickly that the locals couldn't afford to pay $40 for a pair of Nikes for their kids. I couldn't buy shoes from my suppliers for the same price they were being sold for at the big boxes. Small towns have changed forever. They will never be retail hubs again and it's time to stop making people feel guilty for their shopping choices. From Linda Grover of Harmony, MN on 06/23/05 Rating: I agree that wages/benefits aren't the true reasons to buy local. Big chains mainly support someone who is already "rich" and who doesn't even shop or live in your town. Support your local owners. You know their names, see them often, and they in turn support your home town by being a true part of it and shopping at other local places. If you want your town to have character that draws tourism, giving in to big chains is no way to sustain your small town. Think about the added pollution,too. From Lisa Cary of Duluth, MN on 06/10/05 Rating:  My grandfather lived in a small town, and went into town once a week to shop at K-Mart: it IS more expensive to run a small store, but we CAN choose to spend our money locally: that 's why the 2.5 million residents of the Twin Cities should be encouraged to spend SOME of their money "Back Home on Main Street" (www.thebulls-eye.blogspot.com) when they are out in rural Minnesota this summer. I just spent $20 on razors and stuff near my grandpa's home town, that store needs my money more. From Jamie Wellik of Golden Valley, MN on 06/08/05 Rating: From VIctoria Ford of Saint Paul, MN on 06/07/05 Rating: Time and place is important. The idea of box stores afforded consumers delightful new options in spending and several years ago this approach seemed to be a solution to changing shifts in economy, industry and lifestyle. As time has gone by the whole world is identifying the many negative costs this approach has created. Small towns can not look at this dated and lethal machine to drive any kind of boost into the economy. Programs of support and education are needed for real solutions. From Bobbi McCrea of New Ulm, MN on 06/02/05 Rating: Glenn - you are right about the benefits, however I agree with Mark and add there is an issue of corp. responsibility here. 'Mom and Pop' might not be able to afford top benefits for all of their employees, but WalMart claims $10B of annunal profit. There are more reasons to take a stand against WalMart. Example: WalMart hotly censors their magazine and music stock - yet turns a blind eye to suppliers literally working people to death. This greedy moral relativism has no place in small town MN. From Adam Olson of Minneapolis, MN on 06/01/05 Rating: In some cases wages may be comparable between the "Evil big box" stores and the smaller "mom and pop" shops - but in most cases the smaller stores offer their employees other benefits such as a nicer working environment. Another aspect worth noting is the flatter management structure in a "mom and pop" store, offer employees the real chance of discussing any issues that arise with someone capable of acting on it in a prompt manner. That benefit is still tangible despite not being financial. From Mark Thompson of St Paul, MN on 05/31/05 Rating:  Here's one question I have about the 'evil' big box issue: how many 'mom and pop' stores pay better or offer benefits? While I tend to favor small business over large business, it seems odd to gripe about wages at chains if the wages at non-chain stores don't fare any better. There are lots of reasons to prefer small stores to major chains, but I don't see wages and health benefits as part of that issue. From Glenn Kuehne of Alexandria, MN on 05/31/05 Rating: This is worthwhile because so many of the other proposals can't happen if towns don't have a stable economic base. My proposal: A 2 tiered education campaign. The first level targets the general public, teaching them the economic and moral wrongs of WalMart - people do care about what they see as morally wrong, look at American elections. WalMart can be beat the same way. The 2nd tier targets policymakers, telling them what they can do to stop WalMart. Inver Grove Heights did it, so can others! From AJ Williams of Duluth, MN on 05/30/05 Rating: Here's a real tangible for the Pro-Minnesota/Anti-WalMart debate. Check out this news from Wisconsin: http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/may05/328286.asp In summary, 40% of BadgerCare recipients (Wisconsin's state health insurance for the poor) are WalMart employees. In this way, WalMart costs WI taxpayers $2.7M a year - just in health care costs. The frontier of the WalMart battle is in small Minnesota towns today - we have to take a stand. From Adam Olson of Minneapolis, MN on 05/30/05 Rating: Yes! Too many places in Minnesota have fallen victim to the Big Box stores like this. People shop at places like Wal-Mart trying to save $, not knowing that in the long run it's costing so much more. Not enough people know about how WalMart treats there employees. No health insurance for most and they're certainly not paid enough to buy their own, little lone the clothes they sell -- made using sweatshop labour - Wal-Mart doesn't care! Is this what we want in MN?? NO! How can we keep them out?? From Amy Kostner of Austin, MN on 05/30/05 Rating: I agree! Putting a campaign together to get this idea across is difficult, but essential. It's a lot to ask of a struggling family to shop at a locally owned store where prices might be a few cents higher than the corporate monstrosity down the street, yet it is in everyone's best interest to do just that. Stores like WalMart pay their employees a pittance and destroy real jobs along with the soul of MN towns. But how do we defeat short-terminsm and get this message across before it's too late?? From Adam Olson of Minneapolis, MN on 05/30/05
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