More bad news; I just read that Gottschalks Inc. has filed for bankruptcy protection. Apparently the only growth industry around this part of the country is the one that hires people to stand on corners with 'Going out of Business' signs.
Which reminded me of something I read today, "An underpaid man is a customer reduced in purchasing power. He cannot buy. Business depression is caused by weakened purchasing power. Purchasing power is weakened by uncertainty or insufficiency of income. The cure of business depression is through purchasing power, and the source of purchasing power is wages."
Well, that seems to be straightforward and true, though I don't have a lot of respect for the man who said it; Henry Ford, in 1926. Henry had some faults, such as anti-Semitism, that makes respect difficult. But in this, he was right.
Credit, despite what the distributors of plastic cards would have you believe, is not purchasing power, it's wages. Cash. Everything else is a lie and a scheme. And that's why the payment of a living wage is so important. Henry Ford knew it and paid his workers twice the prevailing wage. It's time for the rebirth of the unions.
Back to Gottschalks; I have a personal stake in the local store as it was one the first projects I was involved in when we moved to this part of California. We built it just about 20 years ago. With union labor of course.
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