Black Friday this year?

[jp1]

DH tried to buy steel posts for a deer fence but the farm store didnt have them tall enough. DH is determined to outwit/out-barrier the deer for my lily bed in Hermann.

Don't fences need to be more than 8 feet high to keep deer out?

[LDAHL]

We got a lot of “buy local” messages this year. Personally, I’m not sure that money can be penned up within the city limits that way. It seems to me that all capital is global capital.

I got one email that said “Wait for the next mostly peaceful protest and shop locally”.

[ToomuchStuff]

Only once, did I go out on BF, and that was to see what it was like.
I used to hit the courthouse, thinking it wasn't a legal holiday, so I should be able to pay the property taxes for the year, with no line.
So I mailed the property taxes on the new house, and will be mailing the old houses, and cars, Tuesday.
Other then that, something that was on my list for next year, I found out was discontinued/changed, due to a lawsuit. Looking around I only found one place, online, with them in stock and they had four. I jumped at retail price to be done with it.
Now from a work standpoint, Wednesday, is typically the busiest day of the year for us, and then BF is a weird day with people in early (shoppers), or after 5:30 (those that work), and still a normal Friday in income. Not this year. Wednesday was Friday in income (relaxing compared to) and Friday, was more of a normal Thursday (slow, by comparison).

[catherine]

We got a lot of “buy local” messages this year. Personally, I’m not sure that money can be penned up within the city limits that way. It seems to me that all capital is global capital.

Not true, if you think about it in terms of direct support of your neighbors as opposed to supporting major multinational corporations. I always tell my kids when they ask what I want for Christmas, to buy from local businesses. This year, it's particularly urgent, given the impact of COVID on small business. I buy my kids stuff from the local arts consignments shop, from Dakin in Vermont, from Snowfarm Vineyard in Vermont, and from Phoenix Books in Burlington. I want those business owners, not Jeff Bezos, to get my Christmas spend.

[Alan]

I got one email that said “Wait for the next mostly peaceful protest and shop locally”.

I understand "mostly peaceful protests" generally provide 100% off discounts on all items for those attending. They've taken the concept of 'loss leaders' to wild extremes.

[LDAHL]

Not true, if you think about it in terms of direct support of your neighbors as opposed to supporting major multinational corporations. I always tell my kids when they ask what I want for Christmas, to buy from local businesses. This year, it's particularly urgent, given the impact of COVID on small business. I buy my kids stuff from the local arts consignments shop, from Dakin in Vermont, from Snowfarm Vineyard in Vermont, and from Phoenix Books in Burlington. I want those business owners, not Jeff Bezos, to get my Christmas spend.

The locally owned businesses hire from the same labor pools, buy from similar supply chains, use the same utilities and bank with the same financial institutions as the corporate owned businesses. Any profits they book could wind up with a small business owner on one side of the street or in dividend checks to a shareholder on the other. Either one is free to spend their income on travel or imported cars. Even if you confine your spending to an arbitrarily chosen geographic area, you can’t confine wealth to any one location. Choosing to benefit one neighbor over another with any given dollar spent strikes me as ethically neutral.

[LDAHL]

I understand "mostly peaceful protests" generally provide 100% off discounts on all items for those attending. They've taken the concept of 'loss leaders' to wild extremes.

The purest form of “doorbusters”.

[Tybee]

Catherine, we try to buy local for Christmas. This year we are sending gift cards, and one son said do not give him an Amazon gift card, for the kind of reasons you are talking about. Now he wants socks. He is a good soul. I am going to try to knit him a pair--yikes, the pressure is on.

[catherine]

The locally owned businesses hire from the same labor pools, buy from similar supply chains, use the same utilities and bank with the same financial institutions as the corporate owned businesses. Any profits they book could wind up with a small business owner on one side of the street or in dividend checks to a shareholder on the other. Either one is free to spend their income on travel or imported cars. Even if you confine your spending to an arbitrarily chosen geographic area, you can’t confine wealth to any one location. Choosing to benefit one neighbor over another with any given dollar spent strikes me as ethically neutral.

So, if 100 people in Burlington choose to buy from Amazon rather than walking into little stores on Church Street and buying Christmas presents there, those small store owners will be just as profitable for Christmas? I doubt it. You have to explain that to me. If I'm a small business owner, I'm hoping the townspeople spend their money at my store.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Yea it's pretty self-evident if you spend at local shops it helps keep them in business (if you can get local shops and locally made even better but not so easy). Do I feel obliged to keep them in business? Of course not, and that's good because I CAN'T single-handedly anyway. But if I'm buying things anyway ... So the local shoe store is suffering and I may go back there again, because almost all my shoes (work shoes, walking shoes etc.) except the pair I bought from them recently are falling apart.