Pluto In Capricorn – The Real Effect Of Local Business Collapsing

closedmudlikesubstance writes on Pluto in Capricorn – Business Closing…

“I’m not seeing it in my neighborhood or nearby but the outer suburbs are closing up shop like nobody’s business – bye bye strip malls.”

Today I had to get a book for Vid and as we drove to the local Barnes and Noble I realized the days I may be able to do this are probably numbered and if so this will be a sorry situation. This was the scenario:

Vid is on Spring Break. He was to work on a book report, it’s due when he goes back to school. Problem is he doesn’t have the book because he left it at school.

This is not his fault. We had a spring blizzard and they closed his school unexpectedly on both Thursday and Friday last week so he had no opportunity to bring the book home. He needs this book.

I checked the nearby libraries and while it’s a popular book, the closest copy was 20 miles away. They have them for sale on Amazon for a penny but this is irrelevant as the book won’t get here soon enough. Luckily we’ve still got a bookstore, yes?

It’s things like this that we take for granted that I think we’re going to lose. You think it doesn’t matter but it does because the people who work in these stores that are closing are your neighbors.

I love Amazon as much as the next guy but they have an unfair advantage over local business in that they don’t have to charge sales tax. The local tax pays for the police (etc.) so when the local businesses fold, they will take chunks of the police force with them eventually and you can see a very scary situation forming. Or can you?

What do you think the future holds?

17 thoughts on “Pluto In Capricorn – The Real Effect Of Local Business Collapsing”

  1. its starting to get a bit disturbing.. because i heard that now they’re laying off a whole bunch of teachers because the school districts can’t afford to pay all of them anymore…
    when our educational system starts getting affected by the financial crisis, it’s then that i begin to worry. it’s unfair.

    as for the future, while i have faith in barack and his competence- still, restoring such heavy damage to our economy is no easy task by any stretch of the word.. so, i guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens..

  2. it’s the overextended big box stores that are disappearing fastest… probably because the owners have no roots in the community. it might provide an opportunity for service and knowhow to come to the forefront a bit…

    after all, the boom times hit those mom and pop stores the worst…

  3. big box stores go first because their primary responsibility is to generate earnings which raise share prices for their shareholders.

    Slightly off topic but I notice amazon has a feature now on many books where you can pay an extra $4 and start to read your book on line immediately, without the kindle, using the feature you use to read the excerpts. Leave it to Amazon to see the opportunity in everything.

    I bought one, using the Amazon link on this website and took advantage of that feature to get started right away.

  4. Well I’m just about to start brewing my second!ever! batch of beer. This time it won’t be a wheat beer…I’m thinking a basic lager will do. Basic Taurus, basic beer. I’ll be serving ’em up in approximately 6 weeks time.

  5. oregon doesn’t have sales tax, and business is doing as it ever was from my perspective. i did see circuit city go bye-bye, but it needed to GTFO years ago.

  6. On Kindle, I did walk in to a Boarders lately and wondered if the entire book store and library concept would be obsolete at some point in our life time. Imagine that. No more ink on pages bound by a hard cover that smells musty from age and heavy to carry more than a couple around. The newspaper is disappearing before our eyes. Its really interesting. I’m not sure if Kindle is as cozy. There won’t be any more conversations like, “Oh, great book (by looking at the cover), I really enjoyed it”. Instead it wlil be “Hey, can you twitter my facebook which will message my blackberry about your kindle?” Have we all lost our minds? LOL

  7. I definitely do not live in a small town. I have seen many stores go under, but right now, there are still plenty of places to shop, so that has not really hit so hard here yet. Not that there is not an economic crisis here, because there most definitely is – long island is (was) filled with people who work(ed) on Wall Street. I have most definitely noticed less rush hour morning traffic, and an increase in traffic during the day, when most people used to be at work.I do think the worst is most definitely yet to come, so a year from now, I could very well be missing stores I took for granted.

  8. Wow! Too close for comfort! If it reaches here there would be a lot of people I’d miss, better start on the chewin’ tobacci straight away!!!

  9. The slowing economy hit our tourist-driven economy in this town very hard. There is a glaring visible reminder of it in the very center. A company had planned to buy out an entire block of businesses and demolish them to build a grand, opulent, hotel, parking garage and shopping center overlooking the lake. They got as far as demolishing and digging a huge hole in the ground. Then they lost their financing, couldn’t sell their extravagantly priced condos, and were bombarded by liens. Now there has been a hole in the town for going on three years. I think it’s going to be there for up to 6 while more and more people can’t go to the cabin for the weekend in the summer. It’s sad, this is a dead town.

  10. There are still big hotels going up here in Texas…lots of building going on where I am, though not as much as last year. You do see businesses closing here and there, but it’s not as obvious yet.

  11. Avatar
    mudlikesubstance

    Kashmiri,
    Drink a beer for me. I just got my four different kinds of hops in the mail this week. Too frozen of a ground to plant them out but… am looking forward to it. 🙂

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