The economy doesn’t change because people spend too much or save to much. It will fluctuate depending one which people do more at any given time, but it’s not going to collapse because people don’t spend. The problem lies directly with how much things cost (i.e. the huge profit margins companies make) and how much of the profits are being injected back into the economy. Eventually, even the rich people wont be able to get what they want, simply because nobody will have the resources to make them.

I too, being quite a younger person, share that fascination with America, also growing up and a grey and rainy corner of England.. so it’s nice to see a bit of commentary on the subject of America.

I guess we’re probably going to be chained to Chained America. First off, its easier and less complicated than going deep and finding your Mom and Pop establishments, and secondly, they’ve faded out to the point of near extinction.

Let’s not glamorize the mom & pop stores too much here folks.

Until you’ve lived in a place like this you do not understand… no place to buy books, the local restaurants are not good and offer no variety.

What I find most interesting is the fact that Walmart is going up next to the Stockyards a very successful farmers market. A bastion of small family run businesses, If you want to see how a small business can survive and thrive in the shadow of big box retailers, drop by, but come early as it is impossible to get parking after 10am

It get to the stage where the big boys have that much power that their selling price is less than the wholesale that producer sells to the all the smaller mum-and-pops. That is, they use their size to force their buying price so low, that the only way the producer can make any profit is to increase the price to all the smaller players!

Gnoll110

Secondly, large chains have political clout and are able to get incentives (tax breaks and even tax money) just to come to small towns, where local politicians hope they will bring money and jobs. In Walmart’s case, that has not always turned out the way people hoped.

Final, a poster upthread weirdly claimed that now that America has such a big middle class it can no longer affor the mom and pop shops. The mom and pop shop owners *were* the middle class. The new employees at Walmart are not middle class. Less mom and pops, more Walmarts: the trend is clear, and not exactly in favour of a growing middle class.

Finally, as mentioned, to make things cheap, they hire cheap labour and use cheaply made foreign materials. This makes a literally cheaper product: lesser quality, lesser price. And American money flows out of the country and standards of quality control and employee remuneration get ground down. That is a cost, paid by the community. There are benefits to large chains, and I use them myself, but I don’t devote myself to accumulating the most stuff. I buy quality and I buy less. The qulity items I buy, last. So I paid more in the short term, but gained in the long term. I consume less, because I am beginning to see that everything does have a cost. And cost and value are not only dollar issues.

I wish this article had not framed the debate as “cute old timey America (sadly too expensive) vs. the new efficient Corporate America” but rather: are we interested in saving for the short term or the long term.