The True Cost of Mega-Retailers

The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses

Beginning with a thoughtful analysis of the Boston Tea-Party as an act of corporate sabotage, not just against unfair taxes but against corporate insider loopholes, Stacy Mitchell leads the audience at TEDxDirigo in October 2012 through a compressed but thorough examination of the forces that have led to the decline of local businesses and our current morass.  Stacy is a senior researcher of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. She is also the author of Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses.

In her talk, she breaks down the financial difficulties we face by looking closely at mega market forces that have overwhelmed our economy, such as:

  • The near disappearance of the local Bank and the effect on small business lending
  • The decline of the local farm and the problem of farm subsidies
  • The progression of Urban Sprawl and the vanishing small business
  • The growth of all-encompassing online companies and the need for anti-trust intervention
  • The encroachment of the big box/mega-store and the demise of community businesses

All these problems are the result of big government action or inaction.

She concludes by asking, “How do we begin to see our trips to the farmers market and to a local bookstore not as the answer but as the first step; how do we transform this remarkable consumer trend into something more; how do we make it a political movement?”

Do you have any insights on how to help this movement? Leave a comment below!