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Thread: Support small business

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    Default Re: Support small business

    Both shows are brilliant.

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  3. #22
    Senior Member FredRydr's Avatar
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    Default Re: Support small business

    The latest: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/23/b...ck-friday.html

    The impact locally is substantial, aside from the impact on traditional retail. Carlisle, Pennsylvania is at the junction of Interstates I-81 (a moving morass of 18-wheelers), I-76 (Penna. Turnpike) and nearby I-83, plus US11, US15 and nearby US22/322. Giant humungous warehouses and logistics centers have covered fertile farmland (and they keep getting bigger and more numerous, especially Amazon with its little Help-Wanted yard signs appearing everywhere), while country lanes have become widened concreted roadways to support the constant heavy traffic of trucks. The Cumberland Valley now has some of North America's highest diesel particulate pollution trapped between the mountain ridges to the north and the south, so much so that from a lookout at the top, the brownish haze is seen trapped below between the ridges. Several years ago, my doctor told me a cure for constant cough is to move away.

    So those who pass off concerns about the change from one form of commerce to another, be reminded that choices have their consequences, and the choice for just-in-time delivery of every little thing one could possibly want shifts those consequences onto someone else, somewhere else. In this valley, less food is grown. More health problems develop. Amazon and the others literally dig in and pave over as farmers sell out. Then there are the employment agency schemes that the warehouses use promising workers permanent employment until they burn out after a year or more still on the "three-month probation," still serving the employment agency with no benefits. The list goes on.

    I got my sandpaper fingers delivered within 24 hours of ordering, but at what cost? How long shall we kick this can down the road?
    Last edited by FredRydr; November 24th, 2020 at 06:35 AM.

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    Senior Member Ole Juul's Avatar
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    Default Re: Support small business

    Of course everything has consequences. It's that some consequences are bordering on suicidal. Slowly cutting off the food supply is something to be avoided, in my opinion. And yes it is possible to do so.

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  7. #24
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    Default Re: Support small business

    Fifty years later I remember the radio ad jingle: "Sears has everything."

    Seeing my favorite local electronics store put out of business by big-box stores in the mall reinforced my preference for local places. And my aversion to chain stores and malls.
    Bob

    Making the world a more peaceful place, one fine art print and one handwritten letter at a time.

    Paper cuts through the noise – Richard Moross, MOO CEO

    Indiana Jones used a notebook in the map room, not an app.

    www.bobsoltys.net/fountainpens

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    Default Re: Support small business

    I remember learning at school that the invention of the industrial loom was what started the first Industrial Age, and with it conversion of much of Britain from tenant farms to large grazing estates. That the internet is driving as great a change in the world of marketing and commerce is undeniable.

    Equally undeniable is that all things, change even more than most, have consequences. These consequences motivate even more change and more consequences.

    All of this is something our ancestors witnessed, and we are witnessing today as our world is changing lightning speed dictated by first the advances of telecommunications and most recently the COVID-19 pandemic. While the internet has driven change for over a decade at least, we cannot discount how COVID and the social restrictions it has driven even the most reluctant to internet shopping in the last 10 months.

    As we personally have had to accept change, and learned to use it to our advantage, I believe that that small business owners, craftspeople, and others who can and will see the potential opportunities that these changes create, will create new successful business models in to a changed world.

    As someone who is a tradionalist, the father of a small business owner, I must say this; those of us who stand by the wayside lamenting the losses we witness will be left with our regrets, and no alternative but -- like our ancestors -- to accept a changed world and move forward with it.

    This, I believe, is the reality we face,like it or not.

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  10. #26
    Senior Member FredRydr's Avatar
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    Default Re: Support small business

    Quote Originally Posted by A Smug Dill View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by FredRydr View Post
    be reminded that choices have their consequences,
    Yes, and?...
    And people who do not wish to condemn their children and neighbors to struggle with food and health problems, should stop making those choices. I have been active in the relevant local spheres of influence, but the big money rolls on.

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    Default Re: Support small business

    Too late here. Almost everything has gone except the takeaways and charity shops. Gone are the shoe-shops, the jewellers, the bookshops and newsagents, most of the clothing, male and female, the DIY emporium - slightly different from an ironmongers or hardware store as some would say. We do have one of those and he struggles on against online competition. As others have said above, it's worth paying a little more for the sake of local employment and skill - and it takes a lot of skill to make a local business pay in these times.

    We're faced with the problem of what to do with the empty High Street as are many elsewhere. We could convert the empty shops to dwellings but there's no great demand for housing here. The work has gone away - much of it retail, all exported to faraway vast warehouses. There's a certain circularity in this decline.

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    Jon Szanto (November 24th, 2020)

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    Default Re: Support small business

    Don't it always seem to go
    That you don't know what you've got
    Till it's gone
    They paved paradise
    And put up a parking lot


    ~ Joni Mitchell / "Big Yellow Taxi"
    "When Men differ in Opinion, both Sides ought equally to have the Advantage of being heard by the Publick;
    and that when Truth and Error have fair Play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter."

    ~ Benjamin Franklin

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    Default Re: Support small business

    Quote Originally Posted by A Smug Dill View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by An old bloke View Post
    As someone who is a tradionalist, the father of a small business owner, I must say this; those of us who stand by the wayside lamenting the losses we witness will be left with our regrets, and no alternative but -- like our ancestors -- to accept a changed world and move forward with it.

    This, I believe, is the reality we face,like it or not.
    Whether the individual or the community likes it is utterly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. I believe in the juggernaut of Change, rolling on with no undue consideration for the feelings or even continued survival of anyone, squashing under its weight those who don't either step out of its way or learn to roll alongside (or even on top of) it.

    ...
    Living in the past -- and today will be the past tomorrow -- is irrational and impractical.

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    Default Re: Support small business

    My wife and I are trying to be better about purchasing local, especially for our food. But we live in Maine, which has its seasonal supply challenges in produce. But more local greenhouses have opened, and some do grow all winter, even with feet of snow and sub-freezing temperatures. We buy shares in two local co-ops: one for vegetables, one for local fish catch.

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    FredRydr (November 25th, 2020)

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    Default Re: Support small business

    I often read seniors lamenting about the "good old days". My grandfather would often suggest the past wasn't all that good. It was hard. What we have today is the ability to learn and retrieve information easily, yet many choose to believe conspiracies and disinformation.

    There is also a tendancy to not consider the condition, lives and experiences of others. It is one thing to choose to eat fast food and another to only have fast food available. I remember something Dr. King said to the effect that you don't tell a bootless man to pull himself up by his boot straps.

    We can become smug as we talk of our decisions to save the planet and not realize others are just trying to survive.

    As a long time conservative, I began to change a few years back. I cannot be okay if my neighbors are struggling. While we championed limited government, the pandemic has shot that notion to hell. We need the infrastucture that large government provides that allows us to adapt to things we didn't anticipate.

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    Default Re: Support small business

    @Dill

    You seem to be arguing from the position stated in your signature: not caring is freedom. This is true, in a way, but not all living is done on the scale of "grand scheme." In fact, it may be true that no living is done that way by any individual, ever. We think, abstractly, that way from time to time, but the mother tending to her asthmatic child in her polluted and impoverished environment is not relishing in the vision of the rock of change rolling over her. That all decisions and non-decisions have unpredictable consequences is true, but some of the consequences are predictable, and trying to be good and wise for our children and grandchildren and greater posterity is actually a communal ethic shared round the world. It may be a kind of freedom to not care about this, but really only for that individual. Not caring about the consequences, say, of dumping my toxic waste in my yard rather than storing it until the one day per year that I can have it properly disposed of by my town is a (simplistic) example of what I mean. Social consciousness may be a burden. But so is the battle you describe in the fight for survival. Rarely are battles described as liberating...except by the victors.
    Last edited by TSherbs; November 25th, 2020 at 07:47 AM.

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    Default Re: Support small business

    I've had Amazon Prime since....2008? 2009?


    Back then, getting a package with 2 day shipping was damn near a miracle. Then I got used to it and it became the norm. Then I got mad when two day wasn't always available on Prime items because private sellers had a week to actually ship your "two day". It was right about then that I decided to start divesting my purchases from Amazon except when totally necessary (there are a few small companies that only sell on Amazon). I was reminded of how, just a few short years earlier, you sometimes had to call a business and give them your credit card info to buy something or (in my case) I remember sending a money order to a company (or mailing a check) and then just waiting for an item to arrive eventually.

    I've gotten used to waiting. If there is an item I want, I go to my local shop first. If they don't have it, I ask if they can order it. Most can, but it'll take a week, which is, on the scale of things, totally fine. Very little I'm doing requires my immediate acquisition of an item. I'd rather wait a bit, support a local shop, and get what I want, than go through the rigmarole of hunting around and maybe getting scammed on eBay.

    Anyhow, sometimes slowing down is a good thing. Very little is so important that it can't wait a few days.

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    Default Re: Support small business

    Quote Originally Posted by A Smug Dill View Post
    ....

    Allowing them to keep their businesses and livelihoods unchanged until they die or willingly retire is not a realistic or reasonable constraint in your decision making as a consumer.
    Sure it is. Both realistic and reasonable. Many small town businesses continue for decades simply because the locals decide to keep it going. I live in a small town (8k residents), and this is true here. But yes, some don't make it. But there is nothing unrealistic or unreasonable in spending one's money locally to support local people. It actually can work, Dill. It doesn't have to work forever to be reasonable or realistic. Maybe just 10 years is perfect. Maybe 20. Maybe the generations. And no body here thinks that change doesn't happen.

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    Default Re: Support small business

    Quote Originally Posted by TSherbs View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by A Smug Dill View Post
    ....

    Allowing them to keep their businesses and livelihoods unchanged until they die or willingly retire is not a realistic or reasonable constraint in your decision making as a consumer.
    Sure it is. Both realistic and reasonable. Many small town businesses continue for decades simply because the locals decide to keep it going. I live in a small town (8k residents), and this is true here. But yes, some don't make it. But there is nothing unrealistic or unreasonable in spending one's money locally to support local people. It actually can work, Dill. It doesn't have to work forever to be reasonable or realistic. Maybe just 10 years is perfect. Maybe 20. Maybe the generations. And no body here thinks that change doesn't happen.
    We all do not live in the same place. Perhaps Dill's place is different. I just moved to a wonderful place where I can ride my bicycle less than 1.5 miles for most everything I need. That was not true before where the closest grocery was in excess of 10 miles.

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    Default Re: Support small business

    Quote Originally Posted by Chuck Naill View Post

    We all do not live in the same place. Perhaps Dill's place is different.......
    Yes, that was actually my point. What he was saying was not reasonable actually does work at times where I live. We saved a couple of restaurants in town from Covid-extinction in this manner (a short term example).

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    Default Re: Support small business

    Quote Originally Posted by TSherbs View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by A Smug Dill View Post
    ....

    Allowing them to keep their businesses and livelihoods unchanged until they die or willingly retire is not a realistic or reasonable constraint in your decision making as a consumer.
    Sure it is. Both realistic and reasonable. Many small town businesses continue for decades simply because the locals decide to keep it going. I live in a small town (8k residents), and this is true here. But yes, some don't make it. But there is nothing unrealistic or unreasonable in spending one's money locally to support local people. It actually can work, Dill. It doesn't have to work forever to be reasonable or realistic. Maybe just 10 years is perfect. Maybe 20. Maybe the generations. And no body here thinks that change doesn't happen.
    For you and a few others, and for the now -- the not too distant future -- this may be true.

    Mind you, I say this as someone who is an active advocate of Distributism.

    Change is inevitable and unavoidable. Small business must adapt itself and its business model if it it to survive.

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    Default Re: Support small business

    Quote Originally Posted by An old bloke View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by TSherbs View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by A Smug Dill View Post
    ....

    Allowing them to keep their businesses and livelihoods unchanged until they die or willingly retire is not a realistic or reasonable constraint in your decision making as a consumer.
    Sure it is. Both realistic and reasonable. Many small town businesses continue for decades simply because the locals decide to keep it going. I live in a small town (8k residents), and this is true here. But yes, some don't make it. But there is nothing unrealistic or unreasonable in spending one's money locally to support local people. It actually can work, Dill. It doesn't have to work forever to be reasonable or realistic. Maybe just 10 years is perfect. Maybe 20. Maybe the generations. And no body here thinks that change doesn't happen.
    For you and a few others, and for the now -- the not too distant future -- this may be true.

    Mind you, I say this as someone who is an active advocate of Distributism.

    Change is inevitable and unavoidable. Small business must adapt itself and its business model if it it to survive.
    Location, location, location....LOL!!

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  32. #39
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    Default Re: Support small business

    Goal met!

    Sent from my LG-M210 using Tapatalk
    "I can only improve my self, not the world."

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    Default Re: Support small business

    Yesterday I made my annual journey to Silberman Brown in Seattle, a fancy overpriced stationer that has a small selection of fountain pens and a smaller selection of ink. Never bought pen or ink from them...I go for the cards. Yesterday I picked up three 10-packs of very nice Crane & Co Christmas cards. Such a niche place, and in a high-rent location, I really have no idea how they continue, although apparently their main business is customized fancy wedding &c invitations.

    I'm a very happy Amazon Prime member. I jumped on it soon after it came into existence, as I spend more than that amount every year shipping Christmas presents. I'm a super-happy customer of Amazon, but I also hope they get broken up: cloud computing and media production/streaming ought to be separate.

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