Shopping, Banking Locally Has Big Impact
As I’ve been working and shopping, I’ve been asking a lot of questions of business owners, looking for angles beyond just shopping locally that would help our economy.
One thing to keep in mind is that you can generally tell what’s local, but sometimes it’s not quite so clear. The reasons to buy local go beyond just helping a local shop. You know, when you buy something from a chain store, at the end of the day, the receipts are gathered up and divided up (figuratively speaking). Some goes to the employees’ wages, some to the manager’s salary, and the rest gets sent back to headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., or some such place. When you shop local, the salaries get paid but the profit stays here, too. So it goes to the carpenters building the owner’s new home, or is saved in the local bank, or is donated to local charities or tithed to a local church or starts another business here.
That’s always baffled me about the push for big chain stores. There are some pluses to having them, but I’ve never seen a calculation that includes the money that used to stay here which now, every night, is sent by bank-wire like a bullet right out of the area.
