intellectual properties

on “black friday” (and then some)

yes, my friends, once again i am advocating a BUY NOTHING CHRISTMAS and intend to spend black friday somewhere along the northern california coast between the pacific ocean and a grove of redwoods, not a shopping mall or wal-mart for miles.

IMNSHO, if you really want to celebrate CHRISTmas…in these hard economic times, put giving to the poor at the top of your list. food banks first. i started my giving early this year and last week sent a check to the Alameda County Community Food Bank. find a food bank near you.

if not buying any gifts seems too hardline for you, and/or, although i don’t empathize, i can understand, you LIKE shopping for your friends and family, and you want to express your love and admiration for them with gifts, i suggest buying handmade, local items. use ebay or etsy.com. visit a craft fair. or hey! talk to the people in your town. i bet some of them make things. people are crafty. now, these might not be the “hot gifts” everyone (especially children) has been hypnotized by television to want this year, but i thought it was the thought that counted? or maybe you’re one who believes that the way out of this recession is through consumer spending, and running out at 4AM to Macy’s on Black Friday is part of your patriotic duty….that leads me to another thought:

people keep saying that our Democracy runs on the Dollar, and lots has been written and said recently about our politicans being bought. if that’s true, then you have POWER. think more about where you send your dollars. there’s a lot of frustration lately about companies outsourcing work and manufacturing overseas while Americans are losing jobs. there’s something you can do about that: stop buying things from overseas, and from the companies that outsource. that means you might not get that huge new plasma screen TV, or your kids might not get the hottest Made in China toys for Christmas this year. but wouldn’t you rather have a job? Wal-Mart and other huge retailers take middle-class jobs away by killing small businesses and selling imported goods, yet everyone keeps giving them their money, usually for things they don’t need. why? long ago i pledged to stop buying anything with that MADE IN CHINA label unless i really, really needed it. sometimes, it’s unavoidable. but most of them time, you don’t need it. and america doesn’t need it either. america is losing the 21st century. as this great recent NYT Op-Ed points out, “Never cede a century to a country that censors Google.”

so this Christmas, support America. please give to the poor, and as for gifts, either Buy Nothing or Buy Local. i support both.

“If you wish to be perfect, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” Matthew 19:21

…what He said.

bix box mentality

people often think those of us who are anti-Wal-Mart exaggerate when we discuss the evils of the world’s largest retailer - and America’s largest privte employer. exaggerate the wide-reaching affect of their import/export policies, their human resources policies, and their environmental impacts.

well, i think this serves as proof that your “neighborhood Wal-Mart” cares less about you, your family, your community and your country than it does about profits, and is actively working to maximize profits and minimize reponsibility to its employees and customers.

“An internal memo sent to Wal-Mart’s board of directors proposes numerous ways to hold down spending on health care and other benefits while seeking to minimize damage to the retailer’s reputation. Among the recommendations are hiring more part-time workers and discouraging unhealthy people from working at Wal-Mart.

In the memorandum, M. Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart’s executive vice president for benefits, also recommends reducing 401(k) contributions and wooing younger, and presumably healthier, workers by offering education benefits. The memo voices concern that workers with seven years’ seniority earn more than workers with one year’s seniority, but are no more productive….

…She wrote that “the cost of an associate with seven years of tenure is almost 55 percent more than the cost of an associate with one year of tenure, yet there is no difference in his or her productivity. Moreover, because we pay an associate more in salary and benefits as his or her tenure increases, we are pricing that associate out of the labor market, increasing the likelihood that he or she will stay with Wal-Mart.”

so you go into a small town, build a sprawling complex on a wetland, tout your committment to community building and praise yourself for providing jobs in rural areas, price your goods to beat all the local competition and put everyone out of business, but then put policies in place designed to keep people from working there for more than one or two years because to you, it’s too expensive to give people a long-term source of income. while they do work there, pay them only minimum wage and the thinnest benefit packages possible. spout a “Buy American” ideology, but outsource and import the majority of your goods from the cheapest places in southeast asia, and even the factories that used to hold the small town together soon close. so then we have a small town in which people are trapped into shopping at your store, but they can’t work there and other businesses in town are gone. thanks, Wal-Mart!

for a cartoonish take on this subject, enjoy Bix Box Mart, a fantastic musical from Jibjab.com.

for previous posts and info on Wal-Mart, see “Shopping Ourselves Out of House and Home“.

shopping ourselves out of house and home

The Wal-Mart You Don’t Know: this article is probably the best one i’ve read yet about the unseen evils of Wal-Mart - the world’s largest company - and companies like it (via strangechord). it’s well written and provides multiple detailed examples of how Wal-Mart’s buying policies have effected companies ranging from Vlasic to Levi, proving it’s main point: Wal-Mart is slowly but surely single-handedly forcing manufacturing jobs overseas while at the same time convincing consumers that their low prices are a good thing - and not just a good thing, but that lower and lower prices should be expected, year after year.

it’s a long article, but well worth reading. here are some excerpts (emphasis added):

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