Haterade

Can you imagine being so ignorant as to question why making it easier for people to go to a brick and mortar store with more money in their pocket would help the economy? You know that poor people spend their money right? Here is a study that talks about how families in the lowest wealth percentile are more likely to be in the top third of spenders.

Now imagine if you gave anywhere from $100 - $400 dollars a month back to those people AND made it easier for them to go places without their car. That is where the "velocity of money" really comes into play for the economy. You only hoard money when you have money. If you put money into your average person's pocket, they are more likely to spend it. We are not talking UBI; rather, about the choice to be saddled with car debt.

The service of passenger transit will never be profitable. Is profitability the only requirement for a public service to exist? I would not even put profitability on the table for a public service, as any additional funds redistributed to the co-op members would be extremely valuable to the local economy. What about the losses then? We can offset them with potentially some data collection and resale of the transit users data. The primary way to fund these will be via taxes.

You don't want to pay more for products and services locally? That is understandable! We can square these taxes on the people who consume the most public infrastructure to function: corporations. Did the goods just spawn at your local Walmart? Did the workers get beamed there by the teleporter? The customers had to come from somewhere, and traveled across a ton of pavement to get there. Take their profits to invest in the local communities they allegedly support.

What if the Dollar Generals and Walmarts leave because of the municipal taxes? Good riddence. As per everyone who blows capitalism will tell you, where a market vacuum occurs, new businesses will fill. They will leave behind buildings and real-estate that can be repurposed into community resources or sold to future entrepreneurs who are willing to run at a tighter margin.

There is a local grocery store within a 15 minute drive from my house. They survive even though a Walmart, Target, Giant Eagle, and Marcs are within a 10 minute drive of them. If those national competitors (Walmart, Target) are gone, imagine how many customers will now be free to spend their money on "Main St."

What about all of the employees of those big box stores that will be laid off should they close? They find work at the places that fill that void in the market. I am not going to pretend like this is perfect, but we cannot let the Walmarts of the world pay their employees like shit AND use them as human shields.

We have already spoken about the how there are "gates" that are decision points for the consumer. The cars' "infinite freedom" are an obstacle for every brick and mortar store in our downtowns.