10% of all "sales" are online?
Whats really going on in our "small" town? (Earth?)
Studying whats going on in our towns across the world is very important. "sales (details)"...? however, is becoming "big businesses" only? I was talking with a (good) friend of mine on the street who works at a local Indian/Bangladeshi restaurant (thats still open) (this past week) the other day and he told me that 100 years ago it was all "small business" on this street he yelled... today even in our small town "one family and their kids" own about 3 of the largest and most popular restaurants and also a local hotel. (a medium sized university town? where they expect a 20% enrollment drop?) The funny thing is that my friend is an "american" and hes working for "free" (tips only) right now at the local restaurant while they give out "free" meals every Monday... the owners are foreigners but work as a professor at the local university. I even did a "free delivery" the other day to some Chinese student who wanted a free lunch... as I walked to deliver the food, when I called her to confirm the address she sounded British... I felt a little "guilty" delivering the food with so much wasted platic... however on the walk over I met some people (doing telephone work) installing "fiber optic" cable to "every house in america" and they said they "worked for a government contract"? He told me most of his work was "out in the middle of nowhere with no houses at all.. for miles and miles?"
Sales and "retail sales" are perhaps one of the only "simple" indicator of economic health that we can easily graph and understand.
GDP is the other simple index. If we understood retail establishments "sales" such as grocery stores, restaurants, and bookstores we could safely estimate whether the economy is doing "okay" (GDP).
However what if..if sales wasn't the whole truth? A lot of items are "waste"? For example, What percentage of waste is packaging? About 30% or 29.7 percent? And food waste is estimated at between 30-40 percent of the food supply? And further "buying" "stuff" isn't necessarily good for the environment? In fact its exactly the opposite!?
Something around 10% of all "sales" today are online? And in a lot of ways a "virtual economy" is good for the earth. Economics that don't impact the environment... like the entertainment industry?
How did the Great Depression affect the American economy? In the United States, where the Depression was generally worst, industrial production between 1929 and 1933 fell by nearly 50 percent, gross domestic product (GDP) declined by 30 percent, and unemployment reached more than 20 percent. However, TODAY, what is called the "real unemployment" rate has already soared past 20% in just 30 days not years like the Great Depression of the 1930's/40's/50's? It might be as high as 50%?!? So are we worse off then the Great Depression?
In some ways we are not doing good. For example, the largest retail sales companies in the world (Walmart, Costco) are much much larger then they use to be. Just like in a small town essentially "one company" owns everything... if Walmart of Costco Foods falls the entire economy falls? Walmart sells almost 1/2 a trillion dollars of "sales" each year? Costco only 100 billion? It wasn't this way 100 years ago during the first Great Depression. There was a lot of small businesses? The top 1% of own almost as much wealth as the entire middle class!? The wealth of the richest Americans today say is about $35 trillion. The middle class—representing the 50th to 90th percentiles—holds roughly $36.9 trillion. 1% has as much as 50%?
One simple fact I've seen in my town is a building that has been empty for more then 3 years. I called up the guy who owned the building one day and was curious what the "rent" was. He was "oddly" boarding an airplane to Seattle and was "very upset" that I even called him. He yelled at me and said $6,000 per month! and that was kinda the end of our conversation... Its one of the most important buildings in our town (1 block from main street and US Bank and Wells Fargo, US Bank closed this past year BEFORE this crisis?) and this very large building in my town has been "available" and empty for almost 3 years? What terrifying about this is that the owner is maybe "so wealthy" that he doesn't care at all about it being empty and can keep it empty for years and years?
The problems we have have started to see "recently" (2020) started several years ago?! If you look carefully at the sales data (shown here) for retail sales. You can see in the "price oscillators" show a problem that although the "total sales" have been going up.. they have also been slowing down since about 2011 or 2012. From this data you could say that the 2020 problem stared all the way back in 2011? And most likely in 2019 with what seemed to be just a simple economic "sales blip"?
Even before the "Great Recession" (thats the name not Great Depression) of 2008 and 2009 there was signs in many "indicators" (economic sales) that the economy had some "problems" back in 2006 many MANY years BEFORE the housing crash in 2008? This is also shown in the "purple box" in the above sales data.
The problem isn't really with "retail" and "selling stuff". In a lot of ways its GREAT to sell less trash! The problem is maybe something else.. the way we live? (so i included this data in the graph in orange housing starts) ... As a general rule, most about 30%+ of everyones money/income monthly goes to housing and rent. We are all "renters"? And this doesn't include utilities and many other "taxes and maintenance". From the graph you can see that "population" has kept stable with NEW housing "starts". However, the price certainly has NOT?
Let me know if you have any ideas on this!
:)
Asher!
Studying whats going on in our towns across the world is very important. "sales (details)"...? however, is becoming "big businesses" only? I was talking with a (good) friend of mine on the street who works at a local Indian/Bangladeshi restaurant (thats still open) (this past week) the other day and he told me that 100 years ago it was all "small business" on this street he yelled... today even in our small town "one family and their kids" own about 3 of the largest and most popular restaurants and also a local hotel. (a medium sized university town? where they expect a 20% enrollment drop?) The funny thing is that my friend is an "american" and hes working for "free" (tips only) right now at the local restaurant while they give out "free" meals every Monday... the owners are foreigners but work as a professor at the local university. I even did a "free delivery" the other day to some Chinese student who wanted a free lunch... as I walked to deliver the food, when I called her to confirm the address she sounded British... I felt a little "guilty" delivering the food with so much wasted platic... however on the walk over I met some people (doing telephone work) installing "fiber optic" cable to "every house in america" and they said they "worked for a government contract"? He told me most of his work was "out in the middle of nowhere with no houses at all.. for miles and miles?"
Sales and "retail sales" are perhaps one of the only "simple" indicator of economic health that we can easily graph and understand.
GDP is the other simple index. If we understood retail establishments "sales" such as grocery stores, restaurants, and bookstores we could safely estimate whether the economy is doing "okay" (GDP).
However what if..if sales wasn't the whole truth? A lot of items are "waste"? For example, What percentage of waste is packaging? About 30% or 29.7 percent? And food waste is estimated at between 30-40 percent of the food supply? And further "buying" "stuff" isn't necessarily good for the environment? In fact its exactly the opposite!?
Something around 10% of all "sales" today are online? And in a lot of ways a "virtual economy" is good for the earth. Economics that don't impact the environment... like the entertainment industry?
How did the Great Depression affect the American economy? In the United States, where the Depression was generally worst, industrial production between 1929 and 1933 fell by nearly 50 percent, gross domestic product (GDP) declined by 30 percent, and unemployment reached more than 20 percent. However, TODAY, what is called the "real unemployment" rate has already soared past 20% in just 30 days not years like the Great Depression of the 1930's/40's/50's? It might be as high as 50%?!? So are we worse off then the Great Depression?
In some ways we are not doing good. For example, the largest retail sales companies in the world (Walmart, Costco) are much much larger then they use to be. Just like in a small town essentially "one company" owns everything... if Walmart of Costco Foods falls the entire economy falls? Walmart sells almost 1/2 a trillion dollars of "sales" each year? Costco only 100 billion? It wasn't this way 100 years ago during the first Great Depression. There was a lot of small businesses? The top 1% of own almost as much wealth as the entire middle class!? The wealth of the richest Americans today say is about $35 trillion. The middle class—representing the 50th to 90th percentiles—holds roughly $36.9 trillion. 1% has as much as 50%?
One simple fact I've seen in my town is a building that has been empty for more then 3 years. I called up the guy who owned the building one day and was curious what the "rent" was. He was "oddly" boarding an airplane to Seattle and was "very upset" that I even called him. He yelled at me and said $6,000 per month! and that was kinda the end of our conversation... Its one of the most important buildings in our town (1 block from main street and US Bank and Wells Fargo, US Bank closed this past year BEFORE this crisis?) and this very large building in my town has been "available" and empty for almost 3 years? What terrifying about this is that the owner is maybe "so wealthy" that he doesn't care at all about it being empty and can keep it empty for years and years?
The problems we have have started to see "recently" (2020) started several years ago?! If you look carefully at the sales data (shown here) for retail sales. You can see in the "price oscillators" show a problem that although the "total sales" have been going up.. they have also been slowing down since about 2011 or 2012. From this data you could say that the 2020 problem stared all the way back in 2011? And most likely in 2019 with what seemed to be just a simple economic "sales blip"?
Even before the "Great Recession" (thats the name not Great Depression) of 2008 and 2009 there was signs in many "indicators" (economic sales) that the economy had some "problems" back in 2006 many MANY years BEFORE the housing crash in 2008? This is also shown in the "purple box" in the above sales data.
The problem isn't really with "retail" and "selling stuff". In a lot of ways its GREAT to sell less trash! The problem is maybe something else.. the way we live? (so i included this data in the graph in orange housing starts) ... As a general rule, most about 30%+ of everyones money/income monthly goes to housing and rent. We are all "renters"? And this doesn't include utilities and many other "taxes and maintenance". From the graph you can see that "population" has kept stable with NEW housing "starts". However, the price certainly has NOT?
Let me know if you have any ideas on this!
:)
Asher!