Shop Globally. . .Or Not
I’ve always been inclined to do business locally, wherever possible. I do this in part because over the years my family and I have had small businesses always going up against big companies and being squashed. We haven’t been alone in this experience. . .for a variety of reasons more and more local businesses are going the way of the dodo.
When I first moved to this rural Northern California community 19 years ago, there was a local bank, the Bank of Loleta I thought I’d support. So for several years, we had a good relationship. Then they got eaten by U.S. Bank, which then got involved in some very shady doings, so I was shopping for another bank. Luckily for me, they started another one here: Humboldt Bank. So I dealt with them, got to know their employees, and things were swell. Then Humboldt Bank got eaten by another: Umpqua Bank. Despite their insisting in their ads they were a local bank, they really weren’t: all the managing was done in Sacramento. They made a number of changes their employees weren’t happy about, then they spun off their credit card business to Elan Financial Services. Their “service� stank, so I canceled my card.
In looking for another card, I was tempted to do business with Working Assets Long distance (WALD), an “alternative� and “non-corporate� company that was an alternative to the horrible AT&T (a once-busted trust now unbusting itself). I like their politics, and they “issue� a credit card.
Then I started to look at the fine print on their card application.
The issuing company is an outfit called MBNA Corporation. MBNA (which used to be Maryland Bank) was a bank holding company headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware prior to being acquired by Bank of America in 2005. It was the world's largest independent credit card issuer, specializing in affinity marketing. They’ve become a billion dollar a year corporation issuing and managing cards for people like the Sierra Club, the University of Texas, various alumni associations, and WALD. Like the oil companies in the Middle East, the putative owners make a little while the corporate heavies make A LOT.
But it gets worse.
It turns out MBNA and their employees (knowingly or unknowingly) are heavy supporters of the Republican Party, and especially George W. Bush. So here you have the Sierra Club and WALD making a little off selling THEIR name (and, oh by the way, yours too, if you’re a member), while the very folks they spend donated money to stop make even more from the credit card company! Que 21st Century!
So here I am stuck supporting Corporate America through my credit card, my computer, and now (since AT&T gobbled up SBC, which had gobbled up Pac Bell) my local carrier is AT&T! I vote one way, and they buy two votes the other way with money I gave them.
I suppose the only alternative is to stop buying things (like gas, food and electricity) that aren’t made by Corporate America and, well, drop out. All the local businesses are being bought, co-opted, or driven out of business by Rob Arkley.
And if I get sick or need medical care. . .that’s a whole nother can of worms.
Comments
I try hard to buy locally but I too have observed that the corporate world is taking over all the suppliers. I have since changed my thinking. When I buy something now I make every effort to ensure that it was assembled by someone from earth.
Posted by: Len Henell | July 5, 2006 09:45 PM
A year after the last comment, but here it goes:
The North Coast Co-op entered into a contract with Rob Arkley, Jr. to lease their Eureka store from him, and includes profit-sharing with him as well. This means that a percentage of the money you spend at the Co-op (either one) goes into Arkley's pocket, to spend in ways most Co-op members wouldn't approve.
Arkley never makes an investment he can't totally control (see the Sequoia Park Zoological Society dissolved into the Arkley Zoo Foundation, and you think he doesn't control the Eureka City Council!). To see his influence on the Co-op, check out the new "Natural Food Store" sign right at the street at the Eureka Co-op. A low-life attempt at confusing people with Eureka Natural Foods? You bet! The Arkley play with words. And check out this quote from the interim general manager of the Co-op (from the Co-op Newsletter, Summer 2007, page 17):
"We aren't going back to being the little hippie-dippy, crunchy-granola alternative food store envisioned in the early 1970s. ... We should not be the Co-op that excludes products produced by huge multi-national capitalist companies that have also donated to George Bush's campaign."
O.K. Abandon original values and principles. Support multi-national capitalist corporations (as we all know, the usual source of wholesome organic foods). Support George Bush (or at least what he stands for). Is this our Co-op? No! Is this Arkley's Co-op? Sounds like it!
Boycott the Co-op. Don't give Arkley more money. There are alternatives. Don't SoCal Humboldt. SPREAD THE WORD.
Posted by: Rick Siegfried | July 21, 2007 08:37 AM