Monday, September 16, 2019

blockbuster-mart


BLOCKBUSTER-MART
What if Wal-Mart were to go the way of Blockbuster Video? I got the idea for this when a minion responded to my battle cry of boycotting Wal-Mart by reminding me he had little choice in the matter, as they were the only cheap source of groceries. Oops! I kind of dropped the ball on that consideration. Which just goes to show you that I don't live in a small enough town. But that is a discussion for another day. It is important to keep in mind that for many of us, holding off poverty is a real consideration.
*
May Baby Jesus forgive me, I almost started sounding like Rawles or-ahem-some of my minions. Wealth and poverty is NOT always just a easy Think Yourself And Grow Rich Tony Robbinson Oo-Rah BS plan. Could I have joined the middle class early in life? Sure. If I stayed at a job I hated and wasn't naturally suited in temperament for. The one job I had that was closest in pay and presented achievable advancement in, for a middle class life, yeah, that was the one the Baby Mamma chose the time to divorce me. I wouldn't have made it, but I could have tried for it.
*
The job I also could have died in chasing the Big Bucks ( midwest and South C-store chain “QT”. The stores were usually in Fully Diverse neighborhoods and one night the lone manager on duty was beat to death with bats in the walk-in cooler by Disadvantaged Youths. A few of us started carrying concealed on duty-but that was the beginning of the end for me. No job is worth that kind of risk. But, if I had thought differently, if money was the only thing I cared about, that job would have been a keeper ).
*
And before anyone says “self-employment”, my only experience was LEO and retail management. I was barely into my writing career and still sucked monkey balls-at least compared to today. You could see my budding greatness, but the edges were rather rough. The last thought I would have had was that I was ready for self-employment. I could have stayed in the military, or been hired by the Los Angeles sheriff's department, but I would have stayed an alcoholic to cope with the stress. No, folks, sometimes earning big bucks simply isn't worth it.
*
College? No way was I subjecting myself to four more years of idiot instructors teaching me to be a useless moron. Hell, the military looked GOOD in comparison to college. It still does, and that is not saying a lot. Choosing to make good money is exactly that-a choice. Some of us choose sanity, instead. And when we make that choice, certain repercussions are felt. Such as a narrowing series of options. Like shopping at Yuppie Marts. Now, don't get me wrong. I firmly believe making lots of money is just as constricting and limiting as living on the lower socioeconomic rungs.
*
Once you lock into a trophy wife and McMansion and find the area of high cost of living your job is in, you are on a high speed treadmill that is hard to exit. You actually end up with no to worse choices in life. The brother in law is making five times minimum wage, way above the national average, and is a sad sack prior to every payday. He is trapped and age is whittling away at his options to stay in his field. I'm making what? $1.25 an hour? Semi-retired and few worries beyond what we all face on a macro scale of politics and the economy.
*
Money simply isn't as freeing as it used to be, after the banker scum took over the whole economy in 2008. Why do you think we are still in Afghanistan? Bankers gotta bank, and the Federal Government can continue spending, unlike the credit card users or college debt holders. The bankers hijacked the US military, the education system, the real estate market, and etcetera. You can make serious money and someone is there holding you hostage for their cut. By this point, NOT having money can be, under certain circumstances, liberating. But Jim! What about if you had to go to the hospital, to save your life?
*
What about it? If you have money or insurance, the medical industry WILL without any hesitation, quickly drain you of all your wealth. All those tests you simply must have, to cover the doctors ass with his malpractice insurance so ruinous many professionals leave the industry, quickly escalate any visit past a broken arm into a cost rivaling an expensive house ( the arm cost as much as a new cheap Asian car, in some cases ). You are paying for the many parasites in that system.
*
Congratulations. You get to live a bit longer. In complete debt to the medicals. You are now an indentured servant. How is that quality of life, now? And your illness, or complications from inept treatment, means you didn't really recover. Not properly. But you must still labor away to pay your “saviors”. I think I'll just roll the dice and stay away from those hacks. I'll choose quality of life now over quantity later. And a large part of that quality is not trying to make lots of money. Which means I can't go to Yuppie-Mart to go shopping for my groceries.
*
And that food is the same slop full of hormones and antibiotics and GMO's and Fuki radiation, but in better packages, with buzzwords like “organic”, sold in a nicer store, for four times the cost as what Wal-Mart sells it for. I'm not defending Wally. They push the envelop on their cost savings all the time and I don't like when people do that to something that might kill me, like food ( or, later in time, during Spicy Times, ammunition ). But when you are lower income, Wally is the only game in town eating affordably.
*
Some towns have “competition” that is all the same Yuppie Food Pellets at high prices, and hence no competition at all. The prices vary from “anal sodomy” to “sell us your first born”. I got lucky. My town has a Kroger ( thanks, LDS dudes, for running a good enough business with Smith's groceries that Kroger wanted to buy them up. I do miss the bulk bucket isle, though ). Many small towns do not. You get jacked by Safeway or Albertson's or one of their clones. Your only choice is to drive a ways to Wal-Mart.
*
You might be in the minority and choose quasi-poverty, genteel poverty, like I did. You might have made good money and the business closed down and bankrupted your community. You might be stuck underwater in a house, with high property taxes and laws against jingle mail ( staying liable for the difference in the mortgage and what the house sells for ). You might have been a good little middle class worker your whole life and circumstances screwed you. Wal-Mart destroyed the shopping competition, and your only choice is to shop there. But what happens when Wal-Mart goes out of business, like Blockbuster Video did, wiping out an entire industry? In this case, the affordable groceries industry.
*
Continued tomorrow.
( .Y. )
( today's related Amazon link click HERE )
*
note: free for today books.  Yes, it's zombies, AGAIN!, but at least it is a box set of near two thousand pages total.  If it is half way decent you'll be entertained for a very long time HERE 
*
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links here ( or from http://bisonprepper.com/2.html or www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ). Or PayPal www.paypal.me/jimd303 

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods ( I get 4% of the Amazon sale, so you need to buy $25 worth for me to get my $1 ) or mail me some cash/check/money order or buy a book ( web site for free books, Amazon to pay just as a donation vehicle ).
*** My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184 ***E-Mail me if you want your name added to the weekly e-newsletter subscriber list.
*** Pay your author-no one works for free. I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.*** junk land under a grand *  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio* my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

16 comments:

  1. So much to say. Another post that triggers this reader.

    So who is "living for tomorrow?" The middle class schmucks or the prepper?

    Like I've been saying, my middle class family and friends all IGNORE what is happening politically and live for today and in the process they are leaving themselves open to not being able to live at all tomorrow. We have almost reached the point where the middle class says that the government will take care of us, just like FDR did through his emergency measures, just like Uncle Sam did when it bailed out the banks last time. My uber wealthy cousin in law stockbroker told me thirty or so years ago that I could depend on the financial stability of the U.S. for the duration of my lifetime, but in '08 he said that he sided with the bank bailout because there was no other way to avoid a world wide economic crisis of devastating proportions. Back then he was managing between 100 and 200 million.

    All of this means one thing to me, the best option may simply be to die in a pile of hot brass. Don't know who to credit for that phraseology.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've been saying that you prep in case you survive. It won't help you survive the initial die-off. Far too many warm bodies against you. So, all the goodies for years of survival on your own, but lots of ammo JUST for the first fighting and a bottle of whiskey both to celebrate being correct and dull the pain of the last hours. Don't ask a barber if you need a haircut. Your cousin can ONLY believe in the system that enriches him.

      Delete
  2. Choosing a BTN shop option, to stretch funds out is a necessary tactical decision in modern reality terms. By only buying the necessary items or replenishing basic consumables, and avoiding (a default boycott of many other items) spending any other discretionary funds there will knee cap that business over time and in total. There is still enough mouth breathing zombies that will still continue to shop and consume up until the lights are out to keep the goliath corporations afloat. The snap disbursements and all other forms of .gov/systems regular payments to citizens will fuel the perpetual uber shopper paradigm. Have alternate shop or supply sourcing plotted out on those neighborhood and A.O. maps you already prepared and on file in your headquarters. Shucks, any flavor of incidents can close that shopper option down short or long term anyway.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm aware of the subsidized shopping for Wally. They are great getting Uncle Sugars indirect bail-outs. I stipulate that just enough of less growth will sink them, however. They were already in trouble AFTER Food Stamps doubled.

      Delete
    2. Right. Their margins everywhere are thin and fragile to shocks. My plan, if possible to spread the message is have a punitive ghost week or two or more. Whereas folks organize a period of no patronage of offending businesses, maybe street theatre sidewalk protests, even if using liqour bribed park bums for numbers. When the business is a ghost town and they bleed costs without revenue, notice may be taken then. just saying.

      Delete
    3. I can't really see a general strike happening. Remember, half the population is actively hostile to Deplorables. I still think just walking away, such as with Gillette. It kinda sorta already works with movie tickets. Would Mel Gibson have made a comeback otherwise? Not saying it will kill any company, all the time. It is punitive rather than instructional.

      Delete
  3. A buddy sells asphalt. Before and after his wife passed away with a heart-lung disease that required her to wear a drip pack stocked with Viagra, he owed plenty to the doctors and hospitals. Cost him everything he was earning in addition to insurance. Meanwhile, state law required that Mexican employees who pushed a broom got paid more than $50/hour and some made $90,000 per yer with six kids and a wife who took the kids for free medical care at the emergency room. He paid, the Mexicans didn't. He injured himself and sat in an ER for hours while the freeloaders all got treated but finally gave up and left, leaving his large copay with the hospital.

    And if I write more about this and express any thought whatsoever about fixing The Problem, I will get a 5:00 am knock on my door. Yeah, Jim, you're right and I've been bookmarking and reading about a dozen prepper sites, cursing myself for not doing anything for all of these years. BTW, what do you call sites like the Z Blog, or The Burning Platform?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I loved the Burning Platform. I just can't stand the ads and long load times ( I can't use AdBlock, as it messes with my own blog admin ). Yet, it wasn't really a survivalist site. More, perhaps, a site to get aware of the new reality. It serves value. I'm just not sure how much after you are well aware of what needs to be done.

      Delete
    2. I used to read Burning Platform and liked it. But I also couldn't stand the ads, especially all the pornography. And the slow loading.

      I tried Ad Blocker but I am using Windows XP and it slowed down the computer so much I had to remove it.

      If a site has excessive ads, I don't read it. Too bad really. And also ironic in that they are writing about fighting against globalism, SJWs, etc., yet all their ads are pro-globalism, pro SJW, etc.

      I guess it's all about money for them.

      Delete
    3. How are you getting online with XP, which browser are you using?

      My go-to machine is an XP and I have purchased several so that I can continue to use my 15 year old AutoCAD software and some other business software. About 2 years ago my Chrome software stopped working and about a year before that my Outlook Express stopped. So I bought a Win10 machine just to get online. Win10 is horrifying all the way around.

      Delete
    4. Ghostsniper, Like you I use XP because I have software such as Pagemaker that will not work on new versions of Windows.

      My browser is Firefox 52.9.0 (32-bit).
      Chrome works on my XP. I use Version 49.0.2623.112 m.

      Delete
  4. "The last thought I would have had was that I was ready for self-employment."

    That's one of the saddest realities ever written, and true. For everybody, and it shows the breadth of the delusion created in all of us.

    Briefly, my story is similar as I too was brainwashed into believing I will always be dependent upon others for my direct benefit. I worked for the "man" for 16 years, at 33 different horrifying "jobs" before someone took the time to show me another way - a way to "work for myself" and cut out all the middle men. That day of enlightenment for me was almost 33 years ago, when I was 31 years old. 1986.

    By about 1990 I was no longer capable of working as an employee and though it took longer to realize, I was also not capable of being around other people for more than an hour or so. This has also made me intolerable to any sort of coercion or authority. I mean, really, who has the gall to tell another person how to live any facet of their life?

    Anyway, even though you wasted a big chunk of the only life you'll ever own on endeavors not of your own choosing I bet you are glad you finally made the decision you did. My greatest regret is that I didn't get the word on self employment sooner.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wasted a big chunk with toxic women, also. Some dogs take awhile to learn new tricks :)

      Delete
  5. "How are you getting online with XP, which browser are you using?”


    I’m not the same dude as above GS, but the first thing that you should try is using a non-Microsoft browser; say, Firefox for example. Chrome probably doesn’t work because they may have discontinued, and no longer support the older versions, but Firefox still offers the older versions for XP. As far as Outlook goes, that too is a Microsoft product, and I don’t use mail clients, so unfortunately I do not have any advice for you there. But I’m sure that you can download a 3rd party version for free somewhere.

    You will have to download the Firefox .exe on a different PC, and transfer it to your xp model, but it won’t cost you anything to try it.

    https://rocketfiles.com/windows/browsers/web-browsers/mozilla-firefox/versions

    ReplyDelete
  6. Interesting article. In Modern Mayberry, Wal-Mart is the big store - but Wal-Mart here isn't bad - it doesn't carry the smell of desperation that you see in, say, Houston. It's a bright, pleasant place where I recognize the teller because I've been going there 10 years.

    Haven't been there in weeks. Not pleased.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just the latest in a long line of abuses. You can only give so much to a mentally challenged charity.

      Delete

COMMENTS HAVE BEEN CLOSED