by Terri Kleinberg

Created on: April 27, 2009

Are our lives better because of the Big Box Stores? Generally I would say yes. Not a resounding, pound on the desk yes, but a slow yes with some thought behind it. I live in an area that has fought the Big Box Stores with tooth and nail. The result is Wally World, which is the nick name for the biggest one, is over 20 miles away. Of course there is a Freddies on every corner, and a few others that I would consider rightfully under the Big Box Banner. But they've been around for so long people see them as a part of the landscape.

The fight centered on control of traffic and crime not on the philosophical argument that we are cutting our own throats by outsourcing and importing goods. They weren't even concerned much by the working conditions of many people in the third world countries where a lot of the merchandise is manufactured. Phone call campaigns sponsored and paid for by stores that don't want the competition were common. The callers used scare tactics, such as "Did you know the drug trade increases when these stores are built?' When the caller was asked where she got this statistic, she hemmed and hawed and refused to answer the question. I don't like the current school of campaigning by fear, and am more impressed when advertising tells me the advantages of our current stores instead of making me fear something new.

As for the erosion of our lifestyles by the introduction of less expensive goods. Where is the spirit of competition? Didn't we deregulate and break up Ma Bell a few decades ago to bring about less expensive service? There are laws against monopolies these days. Price fixing is a dirty phrase, as well as being illegal. A friend who works for a manufacturer in the area was incensed that Wally had negotiated for lower prices on the goods made by her company. She felt it was unfair the company should compromise their price. The fact that they made a tidy profit by virtue of the sheer numbers of units sold was unimportant. The thing she focused on was the purchaser shouldn't negotiate for a lower price, the seller should set their prices. What I saw was they could make a profit at a lower price, they just wanted more and she had a job.

I watch people struggle to get jobs here where unemployment is over 12%, the second highest unemployment rate in the nation, and I can't help but wonder if we have priced our work so high that we are out of the market. In order to live in the style to which we have become accustomed, the average worker in the US

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