The other day I was engaged in a conversation about shopping and commented that I have stopped going to Malls. Since we had been discussing the very poor season for merchants, I was asked why I wasn't supporting them. When I took my finger out of the dike, I watched today's world pour out. Merchants have brought defeat unto themselves by wasting too much money on advertising, fancy stores and trim, and too much piled onto overhead charges. Has no one observed the success of warehouse stores like Costco and online stores like Amazon? The response to me about not supporting this dying breed made me think about the reasons that people today cannot deal with change which means that some businesses will no longer work. When autos came in, blacksmiths, in numbers, went out. Makers of lanterns lost business when electricity came into homes. Printers lost business when computers started desktop publishing and typesetting also went out. Newspapers are on their way out because the managing editors think that firing their experienced and higher paid reporters will save money. Do they not realize they also threw away the reason for people to buy their papers?
While there still may be a few holdouts who don't use computers, they are also dying out as a breed. Pretty soon they, too, will be forced to get a computer or remain out of touch with the real world and unable to get information or buy what they need.
It is already $5 cheaper to buy flights online than on the phone and has been for a few years now. Even pre-op registration was done online for me the other day and saved me filling in forms in the office where I was less likely to have the information I needed.
If people in business choose to have their heads in the sand and pretend to be surprised when predicted results finally reach them, they cannot expect everyone to bail them out as the Detroit three are trying to do. A friend said that there is as much manufacturing in the USA as there ever was. I asked what the statistic was based on, realizing that it was not scaled to the larger number of people there are who live in the US today. With more people there are more deaths and accidents than ever before, but again, the key is what percentage of the population in total this represents. More often now, I realize that few people can really grasp a whole picture or system, able to see only one facet at a time.
Deregulation allowed CEOs to become great managers if all they were looking for was the bottom line of profit. It didn't matter if outsourcing cheated the US workers of income and jobs, of tax revenue, or that it violated every moral obligation to the workers to value them as the heart of an organization which would take care of the company if the company took care of them. When the economy was good, the founder of Starbucks could afford to charge more for his product in order to take care of his employees. His product at the time was unique and people who had money were willing to pay for it. But, when the economy slowed down and people saw their Starbucks as a luxury, it had to be cut back. So did a lot of the goodies for workers that had been built into the system.
Americans Continue To Eat Out Despite Recession
US Economy Poll (1/1) - "Synopsis 60% of Americans say they ate dinner out at a restaurant at least once during the prior week, similar to the 64% recorded in December 2005 and down only slightly from 66% in December 2003" Does this give the reader an idea that the quality of restaurant has also gone down. The gourmet restaurants now have fewer lines and reservations while fast food enjoys plenty of business. They are all restaurants but, is the picture the same if one looks at the numbers rather than comparing those to quality of restaurants patronized?
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