The rise and fall of the Wal-Mart society.
All of this talk during the election about jobs and shallow promises of bringing back manufacturing jobs from both candidates fails to address the real reason why we are in this shit show in in the first place. People like to blame business taxes, regulations and free trade agreements as to why those businesses left and moved out of the country. What nobody wants to talk about though is choice. The choice a owner or ceo made to move those jobs. Intentional decisions made as executive compensation and profits increased.
Suppressed wage growth across the country, disappearance of manufacturing jobs, cheap goods flooding the market, local small businesses driven to closure by big box stores has given rise to the Wal-Mart society. The problem is the Wal-Mart society is based on people only being able to afford to shop at Wal-Mart. Unfortunately because it is an unsustainable society, despite Wal-Mart being the second largest employer in the United States, it is predominately composed of part time employees. I believe we are headed towards the dollar store society unless we make major changes.
So how do we fix this mess that we are in? I wonder if we can. We as a society currently are faced with a deluge of problems that goes so far beyond just jobs. Broken tax code, rising costs of so many things. You know it is almost as if wages should have kept pace with the stock market or executive pay.
Would’a, Could’a, Should’a.
I really do not see any real solutions, there is not traction within the state or federal legislative branches to make the hard changes that need to occur. We need people at the local level to stand up new businesses to push back against the status quo. The only way manufacturing is coming back is if new companies spring up. There is also the possibility of devolving into a post apocalyptic world a-la Mad Max.