Local Businesses

Cheapest Is Not Always The Best

• Most American citizens are buying their merchandise from chains and multinationals because the small and medium sized businesses are continuously forced to close.
• Most smaller sized businesses have great difficulty competing with the lower prices large corporations can offer in many industries.
• Multinationals are taking control and eliminating the chances for small and medium sized businesses to compete and even startup anew in many industries within our shores.
• More Americans are working harder for less income. This is causing stress and anxiety levels to reach critical stages. It is causing havoc on the families in our society.

The Growth Of A Business And

Compromises Made to Control Markets

Most people are familiar with Wal-Mart, so this will be used for the following example – they should be large enough to handle constructive comments.

1. When a Wal-Mart store opens, smaller and medium sized businesses in the area, and often in the whole county are forced to close. Bulk purchasing has incredible benefits in producing lower prices which commonly brings in more customers.
2. Wal-Mart tells their suppliers what they will pay for the merchandise they want to sell in their stores. If Wal-Mart management considers the costs are too high from stateside suppliers, they go overseas to purchase their merchandise. At the same time, because so many companies are moving their operations to third world countries, it is getting more difficult to find stateside suppliers.
3. Wal-Mart also sends out employees to other local stores to make sure they have the lowest prices in town. That is a legal business practice, but ethically, it is not showing due respect for other local businesses that are not in a position to afford to buy the massive bulk purchasing that Wal-Mart can command. If a business can afford lower prices and still make an honest buck, just do it! Lowering your prices just because another business chooses to make less is just plain rude.
4. Typically, most large chain retail businesses bypass American companies to increase their own money making, bottom-line strategies. One of the main differences is that many companies do not give stateside suppliers an ultimatum as Wal-Mart currently seems to do – many other businesses simply go straight to their foreign suppliers.
5. Wal-Mart is steadily selling more merchandise purchased from foreign markets.

6. They are developing massive expansion throughout America and around the world which is great business.
7. They are accountable for a large share of the total household purchases made in America which is tremendous.
8. But are their current strategies conducive to the purposes for which Mr. Walton started the stores? Were not low prices just part of the reason? Was he also a proponent in benefiting our American enterprise, our workers, our wholesale suppliers, our local communities and our economy?

Local Repercussions

The local Wal-Mart in my home town expanded into a 24 hour superstore – a grocery store and other departments were added and other departments were enlarged. We have 4 main grocery stores in town.

1. One just closed.
2. Another is seriously talking about closing.
3. The other one besides Wal-Mart has a loyal customer base and may be safe. That grocery store was locally owned, and over the years they expanded throughout the state. As of two years ago, all their stores were bought out by a national conglomerate chain business. They still call the stores by their original name which is a strategic tactic in takeovers in an attempt to retain customer loyalty.
4. Other local smaller businesses have been closing in areas where Wal-Mart expanded their various departments.

Was not Mr. Walton’s motto, to sell merchandise that was “Made in America” and nothing else, and to sell the merchandise at reasonable rates? I wonder what he would say if he could see what his stores are becoming? I wonder if he would find the same principles used when he was in charge?

Chain And Multinational Businesses Are

Shutting American Small & Medium Sized Businesses Down

Big businesses are in every one of our towns. It is a nationwide takeover and is causing a debilitating epidemic within our economy, business sector, and way of life, not only in rural America, but in every town, city and state of our union.

Our production, manufacturing, textiles, customer services, technical support and many other industries are vanishing for third world countries. The large companies that left our shores want us buying their merchandise, but obviously they do not want us making and producing their merchandise for them; they basically want our money - not our workers.

Americans were buying heavily in the second half of 2003 and into 2004. Much of what we bought came from China and other third world economies. It appeared that American companies were not hiring. Actually they were hiring a lot of workers, but they were hiring overseas workers through outsourcing and relocation. Technical advances and streamlining also caused some job cutbacks.

The Chinese government told Harley Davidson they could sell their motorcycles there only if they would manufacture them in China. There are other American businesses that get the same treatment. Our politicians do nothing about it except talk or ignore it.

These movements are not at all conducive to what America stands for, believes in and represents. These tactics have nothing to do with real and balanced trade.

We are allowing injurious and distressing economical abuses upon ourselves and we must stop it immediately as a people because our politicians are obviously not doing their assigned responsibilities and duties.

• Our small business sector continues to disappear from our American landscape. It is suffering severe and deadly tolls. Many are opening up a new business only to find out a few months later they cannot effectively compete.
• The outlook for more of our independently owned and operated American businesses of every size continues to look grim.
• As chain and multinational businesses continue to expand further into our American fabric, more of our smaller and medium sized businesses will be forced to shut down.

We Must Analyze The Whole Picture To Grasp On To,

And Understand The Real Direction And Imminent Dangers

Of Our American Economy And Lives

Lower prices in a nation with a higher cost of living are not conducive to the prosperity of such a nation. When the people of that nation are not manufacturing or producing much of their purchased merchandise, it makes it that much more lethal to that country’s success.

Neglected Necessities

A disturbing number of towns and distressed cities do not have enough money to pay for necessary local governmental services.

1. Water supplies are becoming more contaminated.
2. Sewage treatment plants are lacking necessary funding for needed repairs and modernization.
3. Energy sources have become outdated and are not conducive to a healthy environment. These are just three of the basic staples of local community living. Various services have been eliminated because of our present economy and the diminishing value of our dollar. If we persist to go in our current direction, conditions will only worsen.
4. Our roadways, bridges and much of our basic nationwide infrastructures have become outdated and need serious renovation and/or replacement.

5. Our smaller communities are forced to endure more serious repercussions than our larger cities.
6. This trend is steadily building its way throughout our entire American landscape.
7. We cannot keep running down the quality and efficiency of our private lives, our local communities and our nation at every level.

Not Even A Fair Chance

Individuals that are attempting to open small businesses today are being shot in both legs before they even make it out of the gate.

Hoops To Jump Through

In Starting Up A Business

In Our Present State Of Affairs And Economy

1. Stiff governmental taxation.
2. Unreasonable bureaucratic regulations and other red tape absurdities.
3. Trying to compete with multinational conglomerates and other huge chain businesses that can afford bulk purchasing and undercut the prices of any smaller business.
4. The multiple strains of our present economy.
5. The high cost of marketing and advertising.
6. Stock and supplies.
7. High insurance and liability expenses.
8. The increasing costs of the lease of building space, other start up costs and the various monthly expenditures in doing business, especially a brick and mortar business.
9. The diminishing value of our dollar.
10. Many Americans have less to spend; have limited or no actual wealth and are running out of credit.

Individuals have far less than a fighting chance to even make it through six months of business because of what our politicians and top positioned bureaucrats have brought upon us citizens.

Within the first year in a new business most people find themselves devoid of their savings because it all went into their business. Others find themselves heaped to their neck in loan debt with a struggling business to pay it off. More people are finding themselves in both predicaments. This is a crying shame! The politicians have put in place a system that is not conducive to what America is all about and are making life extremely difficult on most of us.

1. Profits are leaving our local communities to line the pockets of upper management within chain and multinational companies. Our local people need this money to maintain our cities and townships.
2. Through desperation for jobs, local governments are often drastically reducing taxes due to large businesses that want to set up shop in our local communities. The local taxpayers are forced to pick up the tab when they are already pressed beyond measure. These huge companies can afford to pay their own share of the taxes considering the low paying jobs most of them provide.

3. We are allowing our own demise as a successful industrialized nation because we are not coming together to sustain our reasonable and common goals. Our divisions are devastating all our lives.
4. American independently owned and operated businesses and jobs are disappearing from our towns, villages, cities and suburbs. We cannot afford to let this continue.

Case In Point

My home town has taken a terrible beating from manufacturing plants moving their operations outside our American borders and also from foreign competition invading our shorelines. Almost 900 neighbors were basically abandoned last year from one of the factories that sold us out to foreign labor and low environmental standards.

This pot and pan company was here for over 100 years. Now their parent company produces their products outside of America and ships the merchandise back here for retail profits. Surprisingly, some local stores still carry their product line. The same story is being told in every city throughout our nation.

Their prices have not gone down much, but the company now pays the smallest percentage for their manufacturing and production. It is not difficult to figure out where the extra profits are going. It is obvious these companies do not want our labor - just our money. Unemployment pushed over 10% in the first part of 2004 in our community.

But What Can I Do?

1. Currently it is a Catch 22 for a growing number of Americans. Many families have to watch their pennies in their purchases of household necessities because of the high cost of living, out-of-control taxation, the cost of war, personal debt, national debt and our trade deficit.

2. Many people are forced to shop at discount stores and purchase merchandise that is made overseas just to help make ends meet.

3. Huge corporations can afford very effective marketing campaigns. Their advertising makes it appear as if they are doing a great service for our people by opening their stores in our local communities and delivering lower prices.

Let us be real - they open their stores in our communities because they know they can turn a significant profit. They offer low prices because they can afford to and still make a substantial income – they have to remain competitive. Most people like to shop in person instead of mail order. We are their income. That is why they are in our communities. They go where the money is.

When companies say they came to your neighborhood to improve your conditions, they simply want you to feel indebted to them. In turn, you will increase their profit margins that much more by bringing them your business. If they give to local programs, these are write-offs to them. True and pure motives are becoming more difficult to locate. The low pay full time positions, part time, temporary and seasonal employment many of them provide are not enough to take care of their employees that have demanding medical premiums, stiff taxation and full time bills to pay.

4. We can only lose so many businesses and reasonable paying jobs before we do not have enough money to pay our own bills, our infrastructures, our individual livelihood and our American way of life. Many of our infrastructures are breaking down. Frequent repairs are becoming nothing more than band-aid fixes.

5. The quality of life for more of us is deteriorating.

6. More parents have to work at different times to make sure one can be with their children. Hiring daily babysitters or daycare are becoming unaffordable expenses for many families. Such conditions do not leave much time for reasonable and basic romance or a strong and stable family environment, even though we do the best we can.

7. Once devastations reach a certain point, it becomes extremely difficult to bring conditions back to normal and acceptable levels. Many people are forced to suffer needlessly because we fail to pay attention to what is really going on. Our media fails to report many stories we need to be informed of. At times, we fail to take a stand for what is needful and right.

Losing Ground

1. The quality and nutritional values of our foods have seriously diminished for the purpose of lower prices and to increase shelf life and profits. This in turn is producing enormous health complications and runaway medical costs.
2. Lower quality merchandise produced from third world technologies is increasing. Instead of high quality, lasting merchandise, we are being inundated with short-lived and throw away electronics, equipment, clothing and other goods. This is causing overwhelming conditions for our landfills.
3. Lower quality warranties and reduced customer services are becoming commonplace in most market industries. Often it takes more time to get customer service to function than the actual value of the faulty item that has caused you problems. Often we are treated as if we have nothing going on in our life but to be jerked around by an unresponsive customer service system. Of course, the ones in customer service are just following orders from upper management. If they want their job, they have to follow orders, regardless how unreasonable they may be.

4. More Americans are earning less and cannot afford the somewhat higher prices smaller sized businesses are forced to charge.
5. For some people it is just more convenient to shop at the larger sized retail stores when price may not even be an issue. Many smaller stores cannot afford the variety that the larger stores can provide.
6. Convenience is costing our nation irreversible complications in numerous areas of American life. In many instances convenience is overriding local and national necessity.

Just To Compete

1. For America to stay competitive with third world production, lower grade materials and substances are being used.
2. Employees are earning less.
3. More families are finding themselves struggling every day.
4. Stress and anxiety levels keep climbing to more dangerous levels. Illness and disease keep escalating.
5. Demands in the workplace continue to go up.
6. Tensions are building.
7. Tempers are rising.
8. Hope and patience are running out for many of our hard working citizens.

Reality Check

1. We cannot continuously keep buying more merchandise from foreign businesses and expect to keep the American way of life at a reasonable level.
2. With every piece of merchandise that is purchased from a foreign supplier, that is one less article an American worker can make.

3. Our citizens are rightfully becoming uneasy, and a good night’s rest is becoming more difficult to obtain.
4. The lifestyle we and our forefathers and mothers sought and struggled so hard to achieve is steadily fading away.
5. In certain ways we are hammering the nails into our own economic coffin. It is in our collective power and ability to turn every one of our deficits into surpluses.

6. We as a people will have to either accept less of a life, or make serious alterations in our spending habits, attitudes, the way we conduct business among ourselves in America and also around the world. We can either return to steady progress, or continue to deteriorate as a nation. Our problems have become bigger than our various levels of government. Every single one of us must actively get involved, get more educated, pitch in and do our rightful share if we want to regain the prosperity of our nation as a whole.
7. If we refuse to respond now, we will be falling into that very difficult stage, where rebounding will be a most trying and severe undertaking.
8. Such a state will bring about a lot more heartache and misery than anyone wants to be forced to endure. It is already producing serious tolls on many of our family members and neighbors.
9. The government cannot keep indiscriminately running the money press, allowing the value of our dollar to keep going down.
10. We need to seriously look at what we are doing, and what we are not doing. We have to find what will work and what is not working. We must then totally focus on what must be done to regain our strength and stability.

Straightforward Equation

1. The equation is very simple. When people earn less, they can only afford less.

2. When there is less money to spend, we are not able to do as much.

3. Instead of thriving as a nation, we are lowering ourselves, which means our standards will have no choice but to go down.

4. If you want to eat, you have to work.

5. If you want to work, you have to take what is available, regardless of the wage.

6. If you do not want a certain job, someone else will certainly take yours.

7. If you do not pay your taxes, you will be fined and/or locked up.

8. If you do not have enough to pay your personal bills, you will live in substandard housing, or worse yet, out on the streets. Most people living in these conditions never thought it would ever happen to them. And so the story goes…

It is the American Spirit to succeed. It is time to revive this Spirit in each and every one of us. Are you willing to do your reasonable duty, so America can regain its financial footing? We have no choice but to do so.

Do Not Bite Into The Lie

Some people allowed themselves to be convinced that one person cannot make a difference in this world. Too many people think they are the last person that could do such a feat. Throughout history and to this day we have countless individuals who take the challenge and do certainly impact the lives of others in wonderful and fulfilling ways. If you are not one of them you certainly can be. Your decisions have a ripple effect in the lives of countless people whether you realize or accept this reality. You do make a difference for better or for worse. Which testimonial do you want for your own life? How do you want to be remembered? The choice is definitely yours.

http://www.projectrestoreamerica.com

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