Anyone watching the main stream media these days will see a concerted effort by the federal government, presumably the U.S Chamber of Commerce, and various commercial interests to convince people to participate in a spending orgy from "Black Friday" right on through "Cyber Monday", and don't forget many big box stores are now open for your shopping convenience the evening of Thanksgiving Day itself! This no surprise since spending by the American people is about 70% of the U.S. economy. What's being promoted heavily this year is "Small Business Saturday" on November 26th, which is conveniently nestled between the two biggest shopping days of the year. American Express, who created the shopping holiday in 2010, would like for you to patronize local brick and mortar businesses on that day to help revitalize local economies. This is in stark contrast to the traditional Black Friday and Cyber Monday advertisements which want you to spend your money at big box stores and e-commerce sites. This is an ingenious marketing campaign that gives you one more way to part with your money, consume, and "shop until you drop", or worse yet go into more debt, and feel good about it since you are promoting the local economy. Oh, and don't forget to use those credit and charge cards so the big banks can enjoy increased profits as well via their merchant processing fees and exorbitant interest rates. Apparently, these merchant fees are becoming so onerous to some small businesses that they are either opting not to accept these cards, or are passing the fee on to the customer in the form of a higher cost for credit/charge versus cash or higher prices. I am being asked more and more at small businesses whether I am paying with cash or credit, and if paying with credit, the cost is usually more. I won't even go into credit card interest rates and all the fees associated with using that method of payment. Are people actually falling for this bunch of baloney about revitalizing their local communities by shopping at small businesses in their communities one day a year? What a joke! Why does the corpocracy we call government suddenly care about local communities when they have been shoving globalization and various free trade agreements with negative consequences for local communities down our throat for several decades? If you want to help revitalize your local community, start by thinking and acting local EVERY DAY of the year in everything from food to banking. Don't act alone. Promote buying local and volunteering in your community to all your friends and before long you'll see that you can satisfy many of your needs right there in your community, and best of all you can feel proud that you are doing all you can to make your community a better place to live.
