Since the chances of our local Main Street organization sharing it with you are somewhere between none and less than that, you may as well read the national Main Street organization's Story of the Week here:
$20 Per Gallon: All Roads Lead to Main Street, by Erica Stewart (Main Street)
Let’s start with the automobile, and in particular, its gas tank, which is where half of our imported oil ends up. We Americans have a love affair with our cars. This is no secret, and the ways in which the automobile has commanded the development of our suburbs and exurbs is well-documented. Nor is it a mystery how Main Streets have suffered from our reliance on the automobile. As more and more of us abandoned historic, close-in neighborhoods in favor of sprawling new homes and garages, commercial developers followed suit, delivering a suburban Car-topia landscape of strip malls and indoor shopping malls, dotted with big-box retailers, mammoth surface parking lots and a maze of divided highways and traffic lights. As we’ve distanced our homes from where we work, go to school, shop, and worship, the car has been there to bridge the gap. And what has made that work? Cheap oil.
The other half of our imported crude goes into “stuff” we consume. Steiner effectively describes how cheap oil has also enabled our consumption of foreign-made goods, things like couches, DVD players, mops, bed sheets—-products made of synthetic materials derived from, again, oil. These things can be made cheaply in China, for example, where labor and material inputs are vastly less expensive than in the U.S. , and then shipped here via massive container ships. Wal-Mart, for example, has 6,000 suppliers, 80 percent of which are located in China. There’s no way its business model--one based on a global supply chain and distribution of its goods--works without cheap oil. There’s no way it offers such low prices without a supply of cheap oil.
11 comments:
There's a merchant mixer this afternoon, and I've already circulated the Somerville MA "buy local" goals among the NA merchants on the mailing list.
Almost 24 hours later, Mayor England has made the only response, period, which was supportive.
Now I'll send them this link. Thanks, Jeff.
As oil prices rise, Wal-Mart has to reach further into their supply chain to (temporarily) reduce cost and increase profit.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aiL3Mymd_y_g
The almost hidden benefit to Wal-Mart is they will reduce their supplier's delivery efficiencies. That means they effectively raise the delivery costs of the same goods to Wal-Mart's competitors.
Sears did similar things to suppliers when they were "on top."
Maybe one of Jeff Main Street's snappy "buy local" t-shirts would help, Roger.
Almost everything they produce has a buy local message attached since they requested it be included as a tag line with their logo.
That's an interesting link, w&la. Trying to compete with Wal-Mart on massive amounts of cheap plastic stuff from China has never been a very good idea. Building a stronger, more localized economic base, though, will help position us well for their model's eventual collapse. It would certainly be helpful if regional governments and economic development groups would do more to help build or, in a lot of cases, reintroduce the infrastructure necessary for inevitable shifts toward more sustainable practices instead of fighting them and leaving us vulnerable.
Not too long ago, I saw a "Buy Local" shirt in a Louisville store. I searched and searched the tags but I could not tell where the shirt was made. I suspect not Louisville and possibly not the United States.
Reminded me of Mike Doughty's tongue-in-cheek song "Busting Up a Starbucks."
Here's how "Buy Local" looks where the shirt was made...
购买地方
We vote with our feet. Wal-Mart is so depressing, we simply avoid the store. People are not happy, babies crying in carts, Mamaw slapping the babies, saying "Hesh up," people throwing their selections in the cart...
The most insidious Wal-Mart trick is having suppliers like Procter & Gamble (their largest "partner") package a product like Cascade in a box with the same height and width, but with a thinner depth. Appears to have the same dimensions, holds less, and often Wal-Mart charges more per ounce than full-sized competitors. Surprise!
We recently read where the whole "lower price" model is at the end of the cycle. Costs are already as low as they can be, unless they continue driving down real wages. Have you noticed Wal-Mart no longer advertises "Lowest Prices Guaranteed"? They can't.
Quality never costs more in the long term. Besides, local retailers, merchants and entrepreneurs try harder to earn your business (and respect) because they have to. It's a more satisfying transaction.
Are there any t-shirt manufacturers in Louisville or Southern Indiana? That could very well be a part of the equation.
I don't know where the base shirt for the Jeffersonville campaign was constructed but I do know that both the design and screen printing, at least for the initial run, were handled locally.
But overall, you're right: We too often find ourselves at the mercy of an unsustainable system for some of our most commonly used products, even when the message is something else. That particular subject is well-covered in The Small Mart Revolution by Michael Shuman, available from our local bookseller, of course, unless you work for the local school system. Then you'd obviously want to suggest shopping out of state for reading materials, since Indiana tax dollars support your salary. Perhaps our governor could even help set up a contract with some out of state corporation. He's particularly good at it from years of practice.
Update on that Jeff..as of right now, the only school that has responded to my request reading summer reading lists so that we can get stocked up on the books has been the private school, Providence. They sent us their list within an hour and even suggested they'd let their students know we had it.
Nothing yet from NAHS or Floyd Central.
Score one for the Pioneers.
Roger,
"Mayor England has made the only response, period, which was supportive."
This indicates you have more than one response; could you, would you, share some of those other responses? Thanks.
Sorry, should have read a little closer. As Emily L would say . . . "Never Mind"
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