Wednesday
Creative Destruction
Someone on Facebook started one of those, "You know you're from _______ when" sites. I joined the group for my hometown and started reading the various memories. One really struck me:
When I started carrying mail in 1966 there must have been a dozen neighborhood grocery stores Krophs center & hatch ray long hatch &prospect armintrouts and marge&carls on prospect John Hudson, Wheelers, Jay wallace all on congress,Bill Zimmerman on mechanic Stan Zimmerman on Nottawa Harry Betke at that time on magnolia, Smitt and Kern across from boland tire Everitt Kirby on St.Joseph Bob Benson where Koladys used to be, probably a couple more I can't remember.
Twelve neighborhood groceries? My hometown of 11,000 now has zero, with the exception of three Mexican groceries that sprang up in the last ten years.
What happened to those neighborhood grocers? I suspect that's an easy one: chain stores. The Krogers and regional chain grocery chains drove them out. And now you know what's happening? The chain grocery stores are getting driven out by Wal-Mart. Back in the 1980s, we had four full-service grocery stores. We now have two, and one of them is teetering on the brink of collapse (we also have a Save-A-Lot).
It's all what Joseph Schumpeter called "creative destruction." Greater efficiency and the general dynamics of the free market cause it, and we all benefit. Do we lose some charm, like all those corner groceries? I suppose, but I'm not convinced we don't gain charm in other areas of our lives. I would never claim that Wal-Mart is as charming as Uncle Bill's Grocery, but I would argue that the small library of books that I purchase with the grocery savings are.
Two More Old Ads
Drinking Corner
Wisconsin Governor Walker is a maverick. Or is he? This article indicates he's in thrall to at least one special interesting group:
Tucked into Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's (R) much-discussed budget was a little-noticed provision to overhaul the state's regulation of the beer industry. In a state long associated with beer, the provision will make it much more difficult for the Wisconsin's burgeoning craft breweries to operate and expand their business by barring them from selling directly to restaurants and liquor stores, and preventing them from selling their own product onsite.
The new provision treats craft brewers – the 60 of whom make up just 5 percent of the beer market in Wisconsin – like corporate mega-brewers, forcing them to use a wholesale distributor to market their product. Under the provision, it would be illegal, for instance, for a small brewer located near a restaurant to walk next door to deliver a case of beer. They'll have to hire a middle man to do it instead.
But more noteworthy than the provision itself is how it was enacted. The provision was quietly slipped in the massive budget legislation without any consultation from independent craft brewers, who are justifiably outraged by it. One group that clearly did have input, however, is one of the world's largest beer makers – MillerCoors.
Link.
Received in an Email
China's “microbloggers,” reports The New York Times, have let loose with a torrent of fury ever since the S&P downgrade. These bloggers, as much as they can get away with criticizing the government, think their own leaders are foolish to have sunk nearly half of China's $3.2 trillion in foreign reserves into U.S. Treasuries.
“China is always bowing to the United States,” writes one, “when will China really rise up and cast aside its constant fear of the United States' reactions!”
“Chinese people are working so hard, day in and day out,” says another, “the economic environment is so good, but people's livelihoods are not so great – turns out it is because the government is tightening people's waist belts to lend money to the United States.”
