After having heard many sides of the sorry case of the Woolworth's bankruptcy and dissolution, I've figured out a few interesting tidbits which could help us all survive the hard economic times that are to come.
I think their employees feel an inflated sense of self-importance. It's okay for a large employer to get help directly from a government, especially from an unpopular government that feels guilty for chucking the whole nation into hock.
However, it seems like they wanted the government to prop up their losing store. They seemed to think that they were special employees, in a special business, who were supposed to be taken care of. They were just retail clerks in a piss-poor retail store.
[pic- the market strikes back]That's the miserable thing about Tesco, Sainsbury and Walmart and the like. They pay poor unfortunate souls a fiver an hour to put stuff on shelves so that customers can come in and buy them.
It's sad for me to watch that soul-destroying work going on because I've done my share of that kind of work. Those people will never be able to buy even the smallest of flats, unless they work 16+ hours a day, times seven days a week. Take 16/7 and add a couple of decades with no vacations. It's a dead-end, in other words. [read Anna Sam's book Checkout]
That's what's good and bad about big stores. The stuff is cheap, but the employees are a negligible cost. So, bosses make a killing, and governments are not terribly concerned with this imbalanced situation. It reminds me of the coal mine owners vs. coalminers comparison. Castles, Lordships and royal parties vs. working hard for a sandwich and a rented place to sleep.
But, that's not the worst thing about Wooly's. Even as an occasional customer, I could see that their junk was not leaving the shelves. The products were spending years gathering dust and bosses there didn't seem to be too worried about it. So, in this environment, with big boys like Tesco ruling, the Wooly's franchise deserved to fold, especially in this recession.
It was a vulnerable domino.
Wooly's employees are presented on tv and they mention that generations of the same family were working at some stores. It were an institution! Ya, a sick one. Kinda like the government.
When it comes down to it, retail does not add anything to the economy. It produces nothing. All it does is present stuff to consumers. All of us, stores included, live off of what we produce from farms on the land, oil under the land, manufactured products sold overseas, international trade profits, derivatives fraud and enslaving Iraq (to give a recent example). If that money doesn't flow, the economy loses its shine. However, we do, these days have life support. Almost all of us have loans, whether on credit cards, bank loans or mortgages. To me, that's life support.
It's such a good life support that everyone wants it; no one can live without it.*
It allowed a manager at Wooly's to buy a two-storey semi-detached house with 3 or 4 bedrooms and front and rear gardens/yards. That's far too big a box to hold only a couple and their 1.2 kids. But, if the bank will give you the money, you just go for it, doncha?
That's all ILL! It creates a bubble in the economy. It heats up the economy because we're spending the money we will earn years into the future. It eventually makes us work more and harder for the same pay, due to our worrying.
Then comes the occasional crash,
when many people lose their jobs, and have to stop deficit spending (that's what a loan is).
The dominoes start wobbling.
The unemployed can lose their house (the banks never lose, because their loans inflate house prices) largely because they're overextended; in debt up to their eyeballs. This can push other vulnerable enterprises into bankruptcy and so on.The dominoes start wobbling.
I'm not going to give anyone a speech on saving, but it's only part of the solution. Besides, if everybody does lock their wallets, we'll go into an economic nosedive as everyone tries to pay off their debts. A few intelligent individuals can however find a way not to be so vulnerable to crashes by not carrying unnecessary debt. If nothing else, the lack of debt worries won't cost you your sleep.
The one part of society that will never live within its means is the government. They give loans to banks that we'll never be able to pay off, enslaving future generations and cutting back on all the public essentials like education, healthcare and pensions (this has already been happening for years in the UK). Govenments are essentially out of control, democracy or no democracy.
They can literally give our money away and we can do nothing about it.
[pic- "Go on, take it. You're too precious to starve."]
[pic- "Go on, take it. You're too precious to starve."]Unless....we wise up, buy less, buy with cash, buy used (tax-free) and trade services amongst ourselves (tax-free; e.g. lawn-cutting for taxiing). Because, no matter what we do, the government is going to waste every penny it gets from us, and will print more money, until the Chinese, Oily and Japanese economies can no longer bear our debt (the govenment's and our personal debt). Ya, they're carrying us on their backs, because they make stuff (that we buy) and they also save money (our money). But don't worry. They're really uncool, so don't go copying them. They'll only cramp your LARGE lifestyle.
[pic- Terry Rodgers Palace of Automorphic Delights -redux for PG rating]So, if you think life is wonderful now, or at least that it was until last year, it was illusion. Live for the here & now and you might be able to keep a smaller, but more sustainable smile on your face.
-Costick67 (8^P
other pics from fotosearch.com
* this is why Back to the Future and Bill & Ted -type films are so popular. In our heads, we just think we'll solve everything by reaching into the future for a bit of wisdom and some cash. we borrow from our future, and banks help us do it. At what cost, folks?
P.S. I won't even get into the environmental benefits of changing our ways.
