We Are Shopping Ourselves Deeper Into This Recession

When I was a young girl, in about 1968 or so, I traveled with my family from my hometown of Snyder, TX to Fort Worth to visit relatives. While playing with one of my many cousins, I was fascinated by a new toy she had. When I asked where she got it, she said, “K-Mart.” I had never heard of K-Mart.

“What’s K-Mart?” I asked.

“A place,” she answered.

“Is it a store?” I questioned.

“No, it is a PLACE.”

“Like a town?” I was still confused.

“NO, IT IS A PLACE,” she answered impatiently.

Of course, when I asked my aunt about it, she took me there that very afternoon, so that little small-town me could experience the wonders of modern, urban shopping. Turns out that it WAS a store, just a really really big one. Certainly bigger than I was used to.

Back then, most of the shopping I had ever done was at my mother’s side as we visited the stores on the town square in Snyder, or one of the grocery stores on the way to the town square. This was back when there were “register checks,” a stack of books of checks sitting by the register for each bank in town, and you could just pull the one from the bank you used and sign your name. The cashier even would fill out the amount for you if you wished.

At that time, the shoe store on the square in Snyder was one of my favorite places to go shopping. We only went once a year, normally in the late summer right before school started, to purchase my one or two pairs of shoes. In good years, I got one pair of ‘school’ shoes, and one pair of ‘dress’. In lean years, I just got one pair, the ‘school’ ones.

After school started you could always tell the rich kids from the middle class where I resided. The rich kids always had more than one pair of ‘school’ shoes, and you knew exactly how much they had paid for them, because you had drooled over the new expensive styles at the same store where they had shopped. Frequently you would see your friends and their moms shopping there buying school shoes at the same time you were, and the mothers would stand and chat while we children went on to the five-and-dime located next door.

My school clothes were never purchased, my mother made everything I wore. She was an excellent seamstress with a great sense of style, and I always felt that my clothes looked every bit as nice as the stuff the rich kids got down on the square or in Lubbock. My mother was so meticulous in her sewing techniques that most of the other girls thought that my clothes were “custom tailored.” At that time, girls had to wear dresses to school. Jeans and pantsuits weren’t allowed for girls in Snyder until 1972 or so.

My undies and other necessities were normally ordered from either the Sears, Roebuck & Co. or Montgomery Wards catalogs, and I always got those, plus one flannel nightgown, at Christmas under the tree.

One Christmas in the 60’s I asked for and got a pair of white “go-go” boots, even though I received quite a bit of teasing for the extravagance. Those were the most uncomfortable shoes I ever wore as a child.

Later, when I started to turn into a young woman who rode horses, went to dances, and whose feet had stopped growing, my Daddy took me down to that same shoe store and bought me my first pair of really nice cowboy boots. He paid an exorbitant amount of money for them, or so I thought at the time, but I wore them literally for years.

On trips to Fort Worth, we would visit the beautiful Seminary South shopping center. I was always amazed at the gorgeous turquoise blue and silver Christmas decorations, and all the lush extravagant things on display. But we almost never bought anything, because everything was considered by my mother to be just too expensive. We were happy for her to go and get ideas for my stylish clothes that she made later.

I don’t remember Snyder having its own fabric store. But our five-and-dime had a good fabrics department, complete with patterns, so we normally shopped there. Sometimes we would buy fabrics on our trips to Fort Worth, where we visited the many fabric stores, or sometimes my mother would “take a chance” and order fabrics through the mail-order catalogs. If the fabrics didn’t hold up well, she would always berate herself for buying such cheap material. So many hours of work were wasted when this happened. I loved a good fabric store almost as much as my mother did, both of us walking the isles feeling the “hand and drape” of the materials that caught our eye.

Shopping as I knew it as a child will, I’m afraid, never be in the experience of most American children today. Their shopping world is Wal-Mart or other “box” stores, where they buy mountains of cheap imported goods made by their counterparts in 3^rd World countries in return for a meager existence. Crowded stores, walking miles and miles to “find everything in one place,” pushing, shoving, crying babies, and now shootings. Nasty parking lots complete with scattered trash and used diapers. Surly “associates” who are barely making a living themselves. Parents who are totally stressed-out because they lost their good jobs and are having to pinch every penny and do the “shopping” in the late hours of the evening. Mothers hurriedly trying to make choices while also in mortal fear that their child will be out of eyesight and lost to a baby-snatcher forever.

And the things that we buy today cannot match the experience of the things I had as a child. My mother could get away with buying me just one pair of shoes a year, because they were good leather shoes that would last through the trials and tribulations of childhood. Cheap shoes did not permanently maim my feet, because no cheap shoes were available. As cheap goods have become more readily available, parents cannot justify buying expensive goods. Many children today will never experience the luxury of expensive clothes, shoes, linens, or dishes. Even socks. For folks as old as I am, the frustration of not being able to find decent socks is unbearable.

I certainly had fewer “things,” but the things I had were cared for and treasured. I stand now in my grandchildren’s home and I am overwhelmed by the sheer number of “things” they have. And they really care for none of them. It has become extremely difficult to find appropriate gifts for them, because they already have far more than they need. The paltry gifts I can afford don’t make much of an impression, and handmade gifts are not appreciated at all. Why would Granny make a stuffed toy and expect it to be special, when stuffed toys are available by the basket load for $1.00 at Wal-Mart? I understand how they feel.

I spent many years of my life living in discount-land. After living such a Spartan existence in my youth, the extravagance offered by the big-box stores at such a reasonable price lured me in. But I experienced so many disappointments with the quality, and I started searching for better but fewer and more carefully purchased goods.

At Christmas 2 years ago, after the lead paint scare, I began an intensive search for toys for my grandchildren that were made in the USA. This search turned into a treasure hunt, taking months of my time, for most of the American toy factories have closed and moved overseas to cheap labor and materials. I did the majority of my searching online, because the “big-box” stores sell primarily foreign-made toys. I ended up finding some really cool and unique toys that were surprisingly inexpensive.

But I was so saddened and appalled to learn that so many American factories had closed. When you buy a pair of Levi’s jeans, for instance, NOT ONE STITCH of those jeans are made in the USA anymore. There is not one Levi’s factory remaining here. The last one closed in 2004, in San Antonio, and just from that one factory 2000 workers lost their jobs. 20 years ago, Levi’s operated 63 factories in the US. Even the denim is made overseas now.

Oshkosh B’Gosh operated 16 factories in the US in 1996, and now there are 2. Only 10% of their production was domestic by the end of 2001. And NOTHING is made in Oshkosh anymore.

Want to buy your grandchild a red metal Radio Flyer wagon? While its website calls it “Radio Flyer —America‘s Dream Factory for Over 85 Years,” the metal wagons are sadly not created here anymore. How about some Converse tennis shoes, or an Etch-A-Sketch? Want to buy a John Deere cotton picker, or a Bic Pen? Nope, those are now made overseas.

According to a study called “The Changing nature of Corporate Global Restructuring” submitted to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission in 2004 by Dr. Kate Bronfenbrenner of Cornell University and Dr. Stephanie Luce of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, the loss of American manufacturing jobs in just the first quarter of 2004 is astonishing:

The region that has seen the most jobs shifted overall is the Midwest, which lost 18,938 jobs to offshoring between January and March 2004. The Southeast lost 8,604 jobs, followed by the Northeast that lost 7,223 jobs. In terms of specific states, the state of Illinois had the greatest number of jobs lost (7,555) almost all of which went to Mexico. It was followed by Michigan, which lost 5,283 jobs, mostly to Mexico. North Carolina witnessed the greatest number of jobs moving to China, with 839 for January-March. There were 773 jobs moved from Ohio to China, 650 from California, and 510 from Indiana during the first quarter of 2004.

This study also says that “Contrary to recent estimates by BLS, we estimate that the numbers of jobs being lost through production shifts out of the US are significant, averaging as much as ……406,000 overall."

And, while I grant you that some of these jobs may have been union jobs, where the workers were paid too much and the employers were over a barrel, more than half were not. They belonged to American workers who were just trying to earn a living.

You want to really be depressed about the economy? Forget the tv, just go to cnn.com and do a search on “Exporting America.” The search will show you a HUGE list of American companies that either already have or are planning to shift their production or technology jobs overseas. Yes, I said technology. It was really easy for me to justify the moving of manufacturing jobs overseas, I could just spew ugly things about the unions doing it to themselves. But technology jobs going overseas hits quite a bit closer to home.

There’s even a magazine dedicated to plant closings, The Plant Closing News. You can go to www.plantclosings.com and read about it, published twice per month since 2003. And there is precious little in the regular news about moving jobs offshore, because companies are sensitive to the bad publicity garnered in announcements and press releases. In the past, companies felt that a public threat of jobs moving overseas was a good way to quiet union protests, but no more. Now they just quietly move.

Many of the jobs now being lost to overseas-based companies are now service-sector jobs. This is really scary considering that our government promised that us that things would be better if we had free trade and a service-based economy.

There was an article in BUSINESSWEEK on June 18, 2007 (The Real Cost of Offshoring) by Michael Mandel that pointed out a serious flaw in the way the US government has been coming up with our Gross Domestic Product numbers. If he is correct, our country has been harmed by globilization far more than anyone has realized.

I know that our unemployment rate is high, but not that high. Certainly not as high as it was in the Great Depression.

However, how many folks do you know that lost their good-paying job and are now working at a lower-paying job? Multiply that by people all over the country, and you have a fast but certain lowering of disposable income in the US. We are a country of workers. We like to work, as a general rule. Those that don’t were on the welfare rolls already. Those that do are going to find another job, period. Even if it doesn’t pay as well.

No wonder that our country is in a recession.

And how did we get here? We shopped ourselves here.

We consistently supported the big box stores that were driving prices down to the lowest possible. We looked for those foreign made bargains. We got bad toothpaste because we wanted the cheapest, and our manufacturers gave us what we wanted. We got toys with lead paint on them because we wanted the cheapest, and we bought them at the bargain store. The bargain store told the suppliers that they had to cut the price, and the suppliers complied. In order to compete, the suppliers had to cut costs and move overseas or go bankrupt.

So, my question is, how can you have a service-based economy if there is no one left who can afford the service?

The big box stores are keeping prices low by only paying their employees the very minimum necessary. Those folks sure aren’t going to be able to afford life insurance, heck, they can’t even afford the health insurance that the company offers. What will we do when that is the only place left to work? Will we ALL be able to be a Wal-Mart greeter for 15 hours a week at $7.00 per hour?

I think we asked for this recession. We asked for the reduction in quality goods manufactured in our own country. We got it because we “shopped” it into existence. Every time we spent a dollar in a big-box, corporate-owned bargain store, we voted with that dollar. We voted against the Americans who lost their jobs, and we didn’t care.

And there are some bigger catastrophes looming on the horizon. We are outsourcing some pretty important stuff now, food resources, all our clothing, our auto parts and our drug manufacturing. I believe we are leaving ourselves exposed to a grave danger. What would happen if we couldn’t get those things anymore? What if fuel costs rise to the point that it is no longer feasible to import?

And what if, at that point, there is no one left here who knows how to make anything?

Every time a factory closes in the United States, there is an auction of the machinery. According to a friend of mine who frequents these auctions, the majority of the buyers are foreign. So not only will we not know how to make anything, we won’t have the machinery to do it, either.

It is time to say no to this future. This is not the future I want for my grandchildren. I haven’t set foot in a Wal-Mart in over a year now, and I don’t plan to return. I’m going to support my local grocery store, even though they are a bit higher. I’m going to support my local hardware store, and look for American-Made items. I’m going to support my local pharmacy, where there is a guy that I know who owns the place, who looks out for me by getting quality drugs instead of the cheapest. I’m going to support my locally owned restaurants, where the owner looks out for his employees. It may be that I have to make do will less “things.”

I’ll buy less in the long run, and save money. Plus more of my money will stay local and support the local economy. I want that community to be around for my grandchildren.

If we all do that, our customers will also have money to spend with us.

It is time for us to look out for our country. Our citizens. Our workforce. Our community.