“In Chapter 3 of Thom Hartmann’s “Rebooting the American Dream” (serialized exclusively on Truthout), the author looks at how chain stores run by “corporate Godzillas” are crowding out local businesses and endangering communities. He offers proven recommendations – from elsewhere in the world and from this country’s past – to encourage entrepreneurship, keep small businesses healthy and stop giant corporations from “eating your town next”!” quoting Truthout….

The story continues:
“Consider, though, if my shopping trip had been to a mall full of chain stores or to a national superstore. Strict management of cash flow is the name of the game for such businesses, and some of them make deposits several times a day. But the money stays in town for only a day at best.

Every night, all around America, buttons are pushed that – like vampires draining blood from sleeping people – drain cash away from local communities, most of it never to be seen in town again.

At McDonalds, Wal-Mart, Chilis, Home Depot, and a hundred other national and international chains, local branches spend the entire day selling products made or grown far away and shipped over land or sea. Local customers who earned money locally buy these products every day. Although the companies pay a small amount of their revenue back in local taxes and payroll and services, most of it is sucked up nightly into each companys headquarters bank in Chicago or Little Rock or New York or wherever it may be. And most of that money never returns to the local community.

This is how you destroy local communities; its the opposite of a healthy economy.

Clearly, we need to reverse this trend and stop the corporate Godzillas from tearing up our local towns and local economies.”

Ed. Note:
Yalm’s Mayor & Chamber of Commerce President Ron Harding’s comment Friday, November 12, 2010 in the Nisqually Valley News seems to underscore our community’s lack of leadership on this issue when he says,
“Another bonus [about the Les Schwab Tire Store opening], Harding said, is chain businesses such as Les Schwab, Walmart and Safeway draw other businesses into the community,” quoting Megan Hansen’s report.

Yes, Harding is correct; more “chain businesses” are drawing-in more “chain businesses”. Yelm’s main street has been likened to becoming Spanaway’s Pacific Ave, what with all of the worldwide names of chain stores here.

This is how you destroy local communities; its the opposite of a healthy economy.

“Chain busineses” as Harding calls them, are also mulit-national corporations that pay the highest price for road-frontage land, as local property owners cash-out along Yelm Ave. before the values drop further.
For example: Les Schwab is an Oregon-based company.

This is how you destroy local communities; its the opposite of a healthy economy.

To repeat, Yelm has fallen into the trap with support for chain businesses and making running a locally-owned business so difficult here:
This is how you destroy local communities; its the opposite of a healthy economy.