Bargains are Killing Us

We’re a culture addicted to the idea of bargains. Most of what we buy into as a bargain isn’t a bargain at all in the long run, but we’ve brainwashed ourselves to believe that a short-term bargain is some sort of victory that we can’t pass up.

Watch behavior at the fast-food counter. People opt for the “supersize deal”, because it seems like such a bargain. In reality, they’re generally not saving much off the menu price, but more to the point, all the extra calories they’re forcing on themselves is a gigantic health risk to themselves, and a long-term healthcare cost to the nation. But it seems like such a bargain, we just can’t pass it up.

Big-box stores? Let’s just give them the generic name of Big-Mart, since I’m not aware of any chain really named that. It’s a good generic name. Study after study has shown that the prices we pay at Big-Mart are no lower than shopping at the local grocery store or sporting goods store. In fact, many studies have shown that we pay more on average. Worse yet, produce wholesalers find that these Big-Marts are the place where they can unload their lowest quality products. Pay more, get less. No bargain there. The highest cost is that these stores come into a town, drive the local businesses out of business, and many of them refuse to abide by generally accepted fair-labor practices. This means that local businesspeople lose everything, and local workers make less. The community as a whole pays more, gets less, and suffers a big price to both small businesses and the local workforce.

Yet, when the Big-Mart opens up, the shoppers flock there, believing they’re getting “a bargain”, when in fact they’re paying more, getting less, and damaging their local economy. Hardly a bargain…

How about dining choices? In my little city we’ve got the typical national chains, generally with a waiting line on the weekends. Yet, we have several locally owned restaurants that struggle to stay afloat. Why don’t the local folks support their neighbor rather than supporting the big corporate chains? Do they feel like they’re getting a bargain? This one baffles me. I go way out of my way to avoid a chain and support a local business whenever I can, and I find that I get better food and generally pay about the same or less than I would at a chain. I certainly feel better about myself when I’m done.

It might be because I’m a small businessman, and I understand clearly the value of the relationship between local merchant and local customer. But it’s not rocket science. A chain of any sort comes into a community to pull money out of it – that’s its job. They have a corporate structure somewhere else that must be fed, and the local outlet is nothing more than a way to suck as much money from the community as possible. Of course they provide a service – that’s why we give them money. But the local merchant provides the service as well, and he reinvests the money you give him back into the community. He buys locally, and sends his kids to the local schools, and pays property taxes on the home he owns locally.

This is happening all over America, as we let the big boxes and the big corporate chains siphon money from our local communities, draining them of their vitality. Even worse, this is our behavior at a more macro level as a nation. We have no problem with the fact that our economy is now a consumer economy rather than a producer economy. We’ve allowed the big box stores to ship all the jobs overseas, so that we can save a couple bucks on a pair of shoes.

Throughout history, this step of becoming a finance based consumer economy is the final step before the demise of an empire. We still have the power to thwart this fate, but it will take a concerted effort on all our parts in every single buying decision that we make.

Refuse to walk into a big box discount store, and shop instead at your local grocery store, hardware store, or sporting goods store. When you go out to eat, patronize only locally owned eateries. Next time you buy a vehicle, see if you can find one that’s truly made in America, and buy that one. The beauty of a free market in a democracy like ours is that you get to vote not just every couple years, but every single day.

Every time you let money leave your hand, you’re voting for a lifestyle, or a way of “being”.

Let’s stop looking for the bargain, and start looking for the good investment.