It's interesting to think that everybody pays for Walmart's roll-back whether they shop there or not. Before I I read this I looked at the system as being more of a self feeding system: employees can only afford to shop at Walmart, and the former Mom & Pop shop owner that could not compete with Walmart can't find a job anywhere else. This puts a new perspective on it, if Walmart employees cannot afford to shop at Walmart without government assistance... Which the owners of Walmart probably do not finance either due to tax loopholes or off-shore banking, or even both.
Of course, I can't very well boycott them MORE, given that I have never been a fan and have seen the evils of that machine since long before it invaded my country. It wasn't entirely about economics back then but also about censorship which was why I laughed so hard at the demise of Blockbuster (and oh did I laugh). Zellers has already fallen off the grid, and it's possible that Sears is next on the chopping block, unless it's Best Buy. I'd help them out if I could afford to buy anything, but I am not indoctrinated enough to desire 'things' enough to turn 'want' into 'need', and I am making less than the salary my father did when he was my age and 'things' did not cost as much then as they now do.
Even when things appear affordable that is most likely because they will break down far earlier than they should. I had a TV that is now over 25 years old, I had bought it from a second hand store when it was 10 years old, and if I hadn't given it to somebody I no longer speak to eight years ago, I might find it's still working today. That is more than I can say for the piece of shit that is dying on me after 5 or 6 years... And I barely watch it in comparison with that 'old' TV. Compare as we dare, $75 divided by 25 years was $3 a year, but $650 divided by 6 is $108.33 a year. That's not inflation, that's larceny. True, I have no idea the original price of the used TV, but I'm inclined to think it was maybe $500 which is still $20 a year.
I'll give it credit: it lasted longer than the 'extended warrantee' that Best Buy so valiantly attempted to sell me by at least an hour or two. Leading me to the reason I knew then, not to buy into such a promise of futility which would add 10% or 15% to the price.
The world turns. I grow older, and poorer. I disengage from the system just a little bit more every minute. Yet I do spend more of the money I barely own in the places which would counteract the machine the most. Given the fact that these places are getting harder and harder to find, I spend less and less on such 'things'. Worse still, I realize I am not actually missing out because the 'need' was falsely implanted in the first place.
Yes, I have not used the word 'need' very much in the past few years, and the word 'want' has fallen out of popularity with me as well. There are things I sometimes 'would like to have' or 'could make good use of' but I certainly don't 'need' any of it. 'Want' has seemingly become tied to actions and not things. I want to visit <insert persons name here>. I want to take a drive in the country and see the turning leaves, but I need to shower first. I know I am not saving many jobs this way, but do any of us even 'want' to go to our jobs anymore? Or are we simply there because we 'need' to pay the rent, mortgage, or, worse still, our taxes?
I know my own answer to that, and to put it quite simply, the last time I truly liked my job was around the time when I had recently bought a 10 year old TV. Funny thing there is, I was making more money then than I am now, which was why it was never meant to last, like this new fangled piece of shit TV. Some people even have the audacity to claim that this is called progress. I would choose different words like zombified debt-slavery and serfdom with a side order of eat shit and a cavity probe for desert. But I am less like others and more like myself because I choose to see, even if I don't really want to... I need to.
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