Shower Thoughts on Economics

I wrote this after some thoughts occurred to me while taking a shower a few months ago, I hinted at my thoughts and a friend wanted me to share. Keep in mind, I know very little about economics and, overall, I do not follow the news. Saying that, I thought it was worth sharing, maybe?

Because my friend, Jake, asked me to...also, Jake, it is not a dream or anything I want to do, it was merely some thoughts.

While I was in the shower I was thinking about going to Wal-Mart for a few things. I have a strong dislike of Wal-Mart but it is the closest store to me and, I have to admit, having such a variety in one place in convenient. My dislike of it caused me to link Wal-Mart to how poorly our economy is doing. I thought about how there used to be small stores that carried mostly American-made and how towns and even countries used to be a lot more self-sufficient. If another town was failing or started to do poorly it didn't necessarily mean your town would start to do poorly and, especially, ones country's fate was not so closely linked to another. First the industrial revolution began to do away with this self-sufficiency; more and more products began to be made in factories further away, instead of your plow being made by the nearby blacksmith, your dress made by the local tailor, etc. Conversely, the factory towns became more dependent on imported subsistence. Then if an agricultural town did poorly, the factory town suffered as well, and if the factory town suffered losses and people were cut loose, then they bought less.

Globalization took this a step further and intertwined the fate of not only of towns, but also of nations. The phrase popped in my head, “Together we rise, together we fall.” Of course, with globalization there is also the fact that you add a lot of competition. You are competing not only with the company down the road, which has similar access to resources and workers with similar cost of living and, thus, similar wages; but companies across the globe that may have very different access to resources and employees with wages which are determined by totally different means than your own employees' wages. A side note: yes, I know much of the world has unfair wages and horrible work conditions but people rarely seem to also take into account that in some countries you can get a weeks worth of food for only a few dollars and buy a good pair of shoes for a faction of what you would pay here. In other words, you shouldn't just look at how much someone is paid and automatically think it is a horrible wage.

Oh, I almost forgot, in the shower I also thought about how, because each town is no longer self-sufficient and no longer has all the little stores nearby which can provide for your needs, there is not only all the gas and means of power expended in shipping things from far away, but also the added distance and gas you have to use to gain access to these products.

I thought localizing things and decentralizing things (having smaller stores) could help our economy, which is what we used to have anyway. Because I think Wal-Mart is a convenient evil monster that is chiefly responsible with doing away with most mom-and-pop stores, I thought of all this when I thought of going to Wal-Mart.

When I got out of the shower and started eating my breakfast I saw an article in Time called Go Glocal by Rana Foroohar which talks about how companies who are using labor/factories/supplies closer to home are the ones that are doing well and that more companies are likely to follow suit.

Specialization is one way in which states could be not so much in competition with each other. They could mostly try and cater to the companies which are already there, and, thus, not be short changing other states. Intentionally or unintentionally certain companies are already doing this by developing the programs in community colleges which will turn out the individuals they need. Also, it is bound to happen because of the companies starting to utilize small firms and companies to satisfy their needs (those small suppliers will grow and, as the larger company grows, the place where their needs are most readily supplied are right where they are).