Putting Dollar General on the Defensive
April 18, 2022 6:04 PM Subscribe
Mary Gundel loved managing a Dollar General store in Tampa, Fla. But when she detailed its challenges on social media, the company — and fellow employees — took notice. NYtimes.com story.
She first posted a TikTok just trying to defend the employees at Dollar General -- responding to another video that criticizes the messy stores that one often encounters in DG. That was on March 28. In the 3 weeks since then, she's gone viral for exposing the conditions that DG managers deal with (unscheduled delivery trucks, no storage space, unruly customers, not enough employee hours, low pay, outdated computer systems, etc.). She's gotten a bunch of other people voicing similar concerns with the hashtag #putinaticket; she was warned by management to remove her videos multiple times; and was then fired. She's now vetting organizers state-by-state for Dollar General workers interested in unionizing, and she's inspiring a cavalcade of EEOC complaints and a workers' strike set for May 2.
Some back story on Dollar General: From NPR How Dollar General is Transforming Rural America. And an audio story here about the company's continued thriving on the backs of its overworked employees. And previously.
She first posted a TikTok just trying to defend the employees at Dollar General -- responding to another video that criticizes the messy stores that one often encounters in DG. That was on March 28. In the 3 weeks since then, she's gone viral for exposing the conditions that DG managers deal with (unscheduled delivery trucks, no storage space, unruly customers, not enough employee hours, low pay, outdated computer systems, etc.). She's gotten a bunch of other people voicing similar concerns with the hashtag #putinaticket; she was warned by management to remove her videos multiple times; and was then fired. She's now vetting organizers state-by-state for Dollar General workers interested in unionizing, and she's inspiring a cavalcade of EEOC complaints and a workers' strike set for May 2.
Some back story on Dollar General: From NPR How Dollar General is Transforming Rural America. And an audio story here about the company's continued thriving on the backs of its overworked employees. And previously.
What a hero.
posted by lunasol at 7:38 PM on April 18, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by lunasol at 7:38 PM on April 18, 2022 [8 favorites]
Great story, but missing from this narrative, and no doubt covered in previous Metafilter threads, is the impact of Dollar General's presence in small town America.
Driving through my part of the country (SW USA), you see Dollar General stores in every town of a certain size. Missing: hardware stores and grocery stores. And more.
Plus, their inventory is crap. I stopped at several stores on one trip to find a simple flashlight, and could only find one $7.99 flashlight at a Dollar General which was total crap.
Were I to believe in curses, of the first ones I would utter would involve Dollar General.
posted by kozad at 7:43 PM on April 18, 2022 [17 favorites]
Driving through my part of the country (SW USA), you see Dollar General stores in every town of a certain size. Missing: hardware stores and grocery stores. And more.
Plus, their inventory is crap. I stopped at several stores on one trip to find a simple flashlight, and could only find one $7.99 flashlight at a Dollar General which was total crap.
Were I to believe in curses, of the first ones I would utter would involve Dollar General.
posted by kozad at 7:43 PM on April 18, 2022 [17 favorites]
I keep seeing countless people being tricked into supporting the worst things in the name of being sensitive to poor people in difficult situations. Dollar stores don't save anyone money, they sell absolute trash or smaller packages of standard items while decent stores go out of business. The ubiquity of fast food places is also incredibly destructive, so stop defending that too. Yes, food deserts exist, so why are you defending the very predatory businesses that create them?
posted by seraphine at 7:52 PM on April 18, 2022 [29 favorites]
posted by seraphine at 7:52 PM on April 18, 2022 [29 favorites]
Dollar stores as a category are not universally bad, and often do save people money in all kinds of ways.
Dollar General is the Dark Universe version of dollar stores and needs to be wiped from existence for the sake of humanity.
posted by hippybear at 8:31 PM on April 18, 2022 [15 favorites]
Dollar General is the Dark Universe version of dollar stores and needs to be wiped from existence for the sake of humanity.
posted by hippybear at 8:31 PM on April 18, 2022 [15 favorites]
If these MBA assholes were even a little bit smart they would have just ignored this. It's not like this is some kind of scandal or shocking surprise. We've all been in these stores, everyone knows what they look like. What did people think the problem was
posted by bleep at 9:28 PM on April 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by bleep at 9:28 PM on April 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
Which I don't want to come off like it's not a great thing is person is doing. I applaud them! More of this please!
posted by bleep at 9:29 PM on April 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by bleep at 9:29 PM on April 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
could only find one $7.99 flashlight...Dollar stores don't save anyone money, they sell absolute trash or smaller packages
Maybe this is a plate of beans too far, but I'm reminded of the meditation<>prosocial post from a day or so back. For me it's hard (and I don't mean this in a rhetorical 'gotcha' way, like really not easy) to differentiate from universal income policies that claim that actual people make good decisions and therefore direct payments of income (instead of qualified benefits) are optimal versus what I observe in race-to-bottom price min-maxing behavior in most places whether it comes to state vs state tax subsidies for development, general tax aversion or dollar store penny-wise preference.
I think social media is one of the banes of the 21st century, but I think one of the other horseman of the civil apocalypse is the genius of 99cents. It's such a crude and effective hack of our better angels. You see it everywhere from dollar stores to defense contracting. Maybe it's right? Maybe these lower priced goods cleave off the design quality we don't really need in place of something that is simply disposable but more cost effective?*
*None of these consumer choices effectively internalizes climate costs, but neither does anything else, so I'm not going to pick on this one.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 11:40 PM on April 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Maybe this is a plate of beans too far, but I'm reminded of the meditation<>prosocial post from a day or so back. For me it's hard (and I don't mean this in a rhetorical 'gotcha' way, like really not easy) to differentiate from universal income policies that claim that actual people make good decisions and therefore direct payments of income (instead of qualified benefits) are optimal versus what I observe in race-to-bottom price min-maxing behavior in most places whether it comes to state vs state tax subsidies for development, general tax aversion or dollar store penny-wise preference.
I think social media is one of the banes of the 21st century, but I think one of the other horseman of the civil apocalypse is the genius of 99cents. It's such a crude and effective hack of our better angels. You see it everywhere from dollar stores to defense contracting. Maybe it's right? Maybe these lower priced goods cleave off the design quality we don't really need in place of something that is simply disposable but more cost effective?*
*None of these consumer choices effectively internalizes climate costs, but neither does anything else, so I'm not going to pick on this one.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 11:40 PM on April 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
why are you defending the very predatory businesses that create them?
Businesses like Dollar General and fast food restaurants in food deserts are not the cause of the problem. They are symptoms of the problem - the are opportunist scavengers jumping in to feast on the problem.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:49 AM on April 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
Businesses like Dollar General and fast food restaurants in food deserts are not the cause of the problem. They are symptoms of the problem - the are opportunist scavengers jumping in to feast on the problem.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:49 AM on April 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
Dollar General is the cause of the problem, in the sense that, when they come to town, they put other stores out of business. Small, independent grocery stores and hardware stores can't compete with the buying power of a national chain.
posted by Bee'sWing at 4:09 AM on April 19, 2022 [15 favorites]
posted by Bee'sWing at 4:09 AM on April 19, 2022 [15 favorites]
The chain dollar stores do exercise a crowing-out effect in their core markets, which are defined by a low density of shopping dollars due both to lower average income and low to middling population per square mile.
Given the low shopping dollar density, there is only so much retail square footage can hope to operate profitably. Between the chain dollar stores' ability to operate at very low cost, and their providing a compelling if often misleading price proposition to shoppers (goods which are of low quality and/or high cost per unit), it's really hard to compete with them.
This has only gotten worse as the core markets' subset of shoppers with higher incomes, credit cards, and greater tendency/freedom to plan shopping and stock up -- who once upon would have been the main customers for higher-quality stores -- move to Prime and other subscription-based online shopping for anything they don't need same-day.
posted by MattD at 4:16 AM on April 19, 2022 [8 favorites]
Given the low shopping dollar density, there is only so much retail square footage can hope to operate profitably. Between the chain dollar stores' ability to operate at very low cost, and their providing a compelling if often misleading price proposition to shoppers (goods which are of low quality and/or high cost per unit), it's really hard to compete with them.
This has only gotten worse as the core markets' subset of shoppers with higher incomes, credit cards, and greater tendency/freedom to plan shopping and stock up -- who once upon would have been the main customers for higher-quality stores -- move to Prime and other subscription-based online shopping for anything they don't need same-day.
posted by MattD at 4:16 AM on April 19, 2022 [8 favorites]
Dollar General is the cause of the problem, in the sense that, when they come to town, they put other stores out of business.
I suspect it's more like the area is already becoming economically depressed, and Dollar General takes advantage of the situation. It sounds like you're claiming a vibrant, healthy community gets a Dollar General one day and everyone else folds up within a year and leaves them as the only option, and I think it's the opposite - smaller businesses fold because of a lack of income because the surrounding community is cash-poor, and Dollar General moves in because they can cope with the low community income because of their own business model.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:25 AM on April 19, 2022 [13 favorites]
I suspect it's more like the area is already becoming economically depressed, and Dollar General takes advantage of the situation. It sounds like you're claiming a vibrant, healthy community gets a Dollar General one day and everyone else folds up within a year and leaves them as the only option, and I think it's the opposite - smaller businesses fold because of a lack of income because the surrounding community is cash-poor, and Dollar General moves in because they can cope with the low community income because of their own business model.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:25 AM on April 19, 2022 [13 favorites]
I'm thinking of how it works in rural areas. "Food desert" is more of an urban term.
Check out this FPP, that shows the process.
posted by Bee'sWing at 4:41 AM on April 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Check out this FPP, that shows the process.
posted by Bee'sWing at 4:41 AM on April 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
In the rural areas I've seen, Dollar General came after everything got hollowed out, not before. DG was a symptom. Wal-Mart was often a cause, though main street was dying anyway long before they came to town.
Why? Because the local industry and the businesses directly supporting it went away and everyone started working in the small city an hour away and if you're already in town you might as well shop there where you can get more stuff, usually cheaper, and not have to stagger through the store an hour later when you're even more tired.
That's not to say I like Dollar General. I pretty much never shop at any dollar stores because they're fucking miserable. I did used to go there sometimes to get Thin Mints by another name when I had a craving for Girl Scout Cookies after I ran out.
posted by wierdo at 5:24 AM on April 19, 2022 [16 favorites]
Why? Because the local industry and the businesses directly supporting it went away and everyone started working in the small city an hour away and if you're already in town you might as well shop there where you can get more stuff, usually cheaper, and not have to stagger through the store an hour later when you're even more tired.
That's not to say I like Dollar General. I pretty much never shop at any dollar stores because they're fucking miserable. I did used to go there sometimes to get Thin Mints by another name when I had a craving for Girl Scout Cookies after I ran out.
posted by wierdo at 5:24 AM on April 19, 2022 [16 favorites]
I'm echoing empress and wierdo above... From what I've seen in the communities that I know and love, DG is typically follows the shopping desert, rather than causing it. A new DG was built in my very rural hometown (where my parents still live) a few years ago. There were two mom-and-pop markets near their house throughout my childhood, but those both closed ages ago. They've always had to drive nearly a half hour to get to "real" shopping (malls, restaurants, Wal-Mart). My folks are aging, and my mother has dementia. There's a grocery store in the next town over, but that takes some planning for my Dad to manage. The new Dollar General on the corner feels like a Godsend to them, especially when the next closest place to buy milk is a gas station in the next town.
posted by hessie at 5:59 AM on April 19, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by hessie at 5:59 AM on April 19, 2022 [8 favorites]
The miserable blue color midwestern town I grew up near has this abandoned site that used to be the shopping center of town. It had a Sears! And maybe a K-Mart? I don’t remember, another national department store at any rate, plus smaller stores and a few restaurants. The whole thing has been abandoned since Sears left. 20, 30 years?
Anyway the city is damn excited this spring to announce revitalization of this blighted spot: it’s getting a Dollar General.
This city already has a Walmart and a Target, both the oversized stores with grocery, automotive, etc. Hell, have you been in a Menards (home center) or Fleet Farm lately? They both have grocery and toy departments now. I don’t see a single thing Dollar General is bringing to this poor, beleaguered town. At least the abandoned Sears lot is also getting an auto parts store, which is something that can help poor folks keep their cars running so they can get to their abusive jobs at the big box stores.
posted by Ookseer at 6:14 AM on April 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
Anyway the city is damn excited this spring to announce revitalization of this blighted spot: it’s getting a Dollar General.
This city already has a Walmart and a Target, both the oversized stores with grocery, automotive, etc. Hell, have you been in a Menards (home center) or Fleet Farm lately? They both have grocery and toy departments now. I don’t see a single thing Dollar General is bringing to this poor, beleaguered town. At least the abandoned Sears lot is also getting an auto parts store, which is something that can help poor folks keep their cars running so they can get to their abusive jobs at the big box stores.
posted by Ookseer at 6:14 AM on April 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
Why? Because the local industry and the businesses directly supporting it went away and everyone started working in the small city an hour away and if you're already in town you might as well shop there where you can get more stuff, usually cheaper, and not have to stagger through the store an hour later when you're even more tired.
I'd say in mine the rise of the auto and low gas prices turned the small town into a suburb with no town attached, so things could be farther apart and the downtown full of historic buildings were just boarded up, not even turned into a kitchy fake downtown that is pretty popular in most small towns that are at least trying.
My family shopped in the big city an hour away 40 years ago, long before Dollar General (or even WalMart came to the closer, slightly larger town).
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:17 AM on April 19, 2022
I'd say in mine the rise of the auto and low gas prices turned the small town into a suburb with no town attached, so things could be farther apart and the downtown full of historic buildings were just boarded up, not even turned into a kitchy fake downtown that is pretty popular in most small towns that are at least trying.
My family shopped in the big city an hour away 40 years ago, long before Dollar General (or even WalMart came to the closer, slightly larger town).
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:17 AM on April 19, 2022
I'll propose that it's a vicious cycle, not a direct one-way cause-and-effect.
Dollar General (and other national/box chains) are predatory. They can read the demographics like anyone, and they know where they can swoop in and draw the dollars. But it is definitely not always after the local economy has died. I've been doing some food-and-ag work in Nebraska, and one of the sites is located in a rural panhandle town where DG opened just last summer. There is only one other grocery store (an IGA-like cooperative member) in a 20-mile radius, and it closed a few months after DG opened. That was a pretty direct effect. (See food deserts in Nebraska).
At the same time, yes, these rural towns were already in long-term decline. And that was because in many cases, they were built around a population and infrastructure - family-run farms on the rail line - that no longer meaningfully exists. So these organizations are like vultures, but they don't only feast on the dead, they also hang around watching creepily while the survivors of a massacre weaken and bleed out, and move in only when they are assured of being able to eat them without a fight. In other words, this late-capitalist vicious cycle in rural food-desert areas produces this form of predation, but the opportunity existed because government and agricultural policies did not support the maintenance of rural populations in the first place. And this form of predation further exacerbates the conditions that continue to weaken remaining survivors and completely reshape local economies, shipping profits away and stripping workers of the benefits they had under localized systems.
posted by Miko at 8:22 AM on April 19, 2022 [9 favorites]
Dollar General (and other national/box chains) are predatory. They can read the demographics like anyone, and they know where they can swoop in and draw the dollars. But it is definitely not always after the local economy has died. I've been doing some food-and-ag work in Nebraska, and one of the sites is located in a rural panhandle town where DG opened just last summer. There is only one other grocery store (an IGA-like cooperative member) in a 20-mile radius, and it closed a few months after DG opened. That was a pretty direct effect. (See food deserts in Nebraska).
At the same time, yes, these rural towns were already in long-term decline. And that was because in many cases, they were built around a population and infrastructure - family-run farms on the rail line - that no longer meaningfully exists. So these organizations are like vultures, but they don't only feast on the dead, they also hang around watching creepily while the survivors of a massacre weaken and bleed out, and move in only when they are assured of being able to eat them without a fight. In other words, this late-capitalist vicious cycle in rural food-desert areas produces this form of predation, but the opportunity existed because government and agricultural policies did not support the maintenance of rural populations in the first place. And this form of predation further exacerbates the conditions that continue to weaken remaining survivors and completely reshape local economies, shipping profits away and stripping workers of the benefits they had under localized systems.
posted by Miko at 8:22 AM on April 19, 2022 [9 favorites]
To me, part of the question is, if workers can unionize can Dollar General become a not-horrible thing for small-town america? I'd love to see corporations start to take a hit in favor of labor.
posted by hydra77 at 9:05 AM on April 19, 2022
posted by hydra77 at 9:05 AM on April 19, 2022
Less horrible, maybe? There's no real way a national corporation can replace the multiplier benefits of local ownership, profits staying local, cultivation of business skills, independent decision-making, local responsiveness, and use of local business services. But the jobs could be better.
posted by Miko at 9:18 AM on April 19, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by Miko at 9:18 AM on April 19, 2022 [7 favorites]
I do a fair amount of cross country driving, often on the back roads and small towns of America. If the town's population is in the hundreds range, Dollar stores and maybe a gas station is all there is. A few local restaurants/bars, but not much else. I don't ever feel like the dollar stores caused the decline, just that they are opportunists. I feel more strongly that Wal-Marts caused issues in many larger towns, destroying the local stores economies. But in small towns with 974 population? They aren't getting a walmart.
Dollar stores seem to be a symptom, rather than a cause. But there are a lot of them...
posted by Windopaene at 9:45 AM on April 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Dollar stores seem to be a symptom, rather than a cause. But there are a lot of them...
posted by Windopaene at 9:45 AM on April 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
If these MBA assholes were even a little bit smart they would have just ignored this. It's not like this is some kind of scandal or shocking surprise. We've all been in these stores, everyone knows what they look like. What did people think the problem was
The smart move would have been to co-opt her and promote her to some vague “Head of Store Solutions” type role to address some of the more egregious issues. That would have converted it to a PR win. The problem is they’re evil AND stupid.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:35 AM on April 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
The smart move would have been to co-opt her and promote her to some vague “Head of Store Solutions” type role to address some of the more egregious issues. That would have converted it to a PR win. The problem is they’re evil AND stupid.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:35 AM on April 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
I know it's probably well-known to people here, but I think it bears repeating: the median real income in the US has been basically stagnant since the mid-1970s. The lion's share of economic gains in the past few decades have all gone to upper-income people. The middle class has experienced an incredible hollowing-out.
Even without demographic shifts and the increased preferences of young people for big cities rather than small towns, many of those towns just wouldn't be able to support the "main street" stores that they used to.
I am reminded of the shopping districts in lots of small cities across Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio, where I've spent a lot of time. In many of them, stores closed but nothing ever replaced them, so you can still see exactly what was there, when the areas were at their peak. They're a sort of economic high-water mark, showing you what once was. There weren't just local grocery stores, but specialty ethnic groceries (German groceries! Italian groceries! Polish groceries!), sporting goods stores, menswear shops making tailored suits, bridal boutiques, toy stores. Hat stores! More often than not with an apartment above them for the family that ran the place. (Also: so. many. churches.) In bigger places, often a multi-floor department store like Kaufmann's.
Now, you'll almost inevitably find a strip mall on the outskirts of town. Super Wal-Mart, Home Depot, maybe a Lowe's. Couple of fast food joints, giant gas station (Sheetz, obvs), Dollar General. Liquor store. Beer distributor, if it's Pennsylvania. Maybe a car wash.
But it's not like people decided one day that they preferred Wal-Mart. It's always some variant of "well, it was a really nice downtown, but then the mill closed, and..." (or the mine, or the factory, or all of the above). And the places never recovered. All of those stores, and the families who ran them, depended on a robust middle class for their customers.
You can't bootstrap businesses like that back into existence just by force of will. I've watched people try. Look hard enough and you'll see storefronts that have failed more recently than others, testaments to someone's attempt to make a go of something (often some sort of passion project: a model train store here, antique shop there, knitting supplies the next town over, occasional computer-repair shops that flourished for a short while in the late 80s and 90s, when computers were expensive enough to repair).
Dollar General is vulture capitalism at its finest, eking out a profit by picking at the juiciest parts of the corpse. But vultures don't bring down a buffalo. Someone with a rifle did, from the comfortable distance of Washington.
And they did it, as far as I can tell, mainly to break the back of the unions (some of which were unfathomably powerful compared to what remains of them today). In that, they certainly succeeded. And certainly there is blame to go around. Many of those laid-off steelworkers and miners and middle-class shopkeepers probably voted for the same politicians who slit their throats with Asian and Mexican trade deals at the earliest opportunity. Some of them still are, judging by the Trump signs in the Wal-Mart parking lots.
But it's a bit late to be going after Dollar General, once it's the last place in town you can buy a quart of milk that doesn't require a quarter-mile walk around the interior of a mega-store.
There aren't very many local solutions to structural, national problems.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:36 AM on April 19, 2022 [19 favorites]
Even without demographic shifts and the increased preferences of young people for big cities rather than small towns, many of those towns just wouldn't be able to support the "main street" stores that they used to.
I am reminded of the shopping districts in lots of small cities across Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio, where I've spent a lot of time. In many of them, stores closed but nothing ever replaced them, so you can still see exactly what was there, when the areas were at their peak. They're a sort of economic high-water mark, showing you what once was. There weren't just local grocery stores, but specialty ethnic groceries (German groceries! Italian groceries! Polish groceries!), sporting goods stores, menswear shops making tailored suits, bridal boutiques, toy stores. Hat stores! More often than not with an apartment above them for the family that ran the place. (Also: so. many. churches.) In bigger places, often a multi-floor department store like Kaufmann's.
Now, you'll almost inevitably find a strip mall on the outskirts of town. Super Wal-Mart, Home Depot, maybe a Lowe's. Couple of fast food joints, giant gas station (Sheetz, obvs), Dollar General. Liquor store. Beer distributor, if it's Pennsylvania. Maybe a car wash.
But it's not like people decided one day that they preferred Wal-Mart. It's always some variant of "well, it was a really nice downtown, but then the mill closed, and..." (or the mine, or the factory, or all of the above). And the places never recovered. All of those stores, and the families who ran them, depended on a robust middle class for their customers.
You can't bootstrap businesses like that back into existence just by force of will. I've watched people try. Look hard enough and you'll see storefronts that have failed more recently than others, testaments to someone's attempt to make a go of something (often some sort of passion project: a model train store here, antique shop there, knitting supplies the next town over, occasional computer-repair shops that flourished for a short while in the late 80s and 90s, when computers were expensive enough to repair).
Dollar General is vulture capitalism at its finest, eking out a profit by picking at the juiciest parts of the corpse. But vultures don't bring down a buffalo. Someone with a rifle did, from the comfortable distance of Washington.
And they did it, as far as I can tell, mainly to break the back of the unions (some of which were unfathomably powerful compared to what remains of them today). In that, they certainly succeeded. And certainly there is blame to go around. Many of those laid-off steelworkers and miners and middle-class shopkeepers probably voted for the same politicians who slit their throats with Asian and Mexican trade deals at the earliest opportunity. Some of them still are, judging by the Trump signs in the Wal-Mart parking lots.
But it's a bit late to be going after Dollar General, once it's the last place in town you can buy a quart of milk that doesn't require a quarter-mile walk around the interior of a mega-store.
There aren't very many local solutions to structural, national problems.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:36 AM on April 19, 2022 [19 favorites]
I know it's probably well-known to people here, but I think it bears repeating: the median real income in the US has been basically stagnant since the mid-1970s. The lion's share of economic gains in the past few decades have all gone to upper-income people. The middle class has experienced an incredible hollowing-out.
And mind, that's during a decades-long period of unprecedented gains in productivity. We could have had widespread prosperity, but it all went to the ultra-wealth -- who used it to buy media and politicians to keep things the way they want it.
posted by Gelatin at 10:40 AM on April 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
And mind, that's during a decades-long period of unprecedented gains in productivity. We could have had widespread prosperity, but it all went to the ultra-wealth -- who used it to buy media and politicians to keep things the way they want it.
posted by Gelatin at 10:40 AM on April 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
Driving through my part of the country (SW USA), you see Dollar General stores in every town of a certain size.
That size, now, is apparently 113.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 10:55 AM on April 19, 2022
That size, now, is apparently 113.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 10:55 AM on April 19, 2022
That size, now, is apparently 113.
non mouse... it's astonishing. My hometown with the new DG? 114. I think you're on to something.
posted by hessie at 11:33 AM on April 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
non mouse... it's astonishing. My hometown with the new DG? 114. I think you're on to something.
posted by hessie at 11:33 AM on April 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Someone with a rifle did, from the comfortable distance of Washington
I thought your comment was great except for this part. You think the anti-manufacturing, anti-union paragons stem from the federal government? Maybe there could have been better enforcement of labor and competition laws and maybe you're just talking about lobbyists, but the hollowing of the US manufacturing sector was largely a defensive maneuver by US corporations against competitors. Yes, it was heavily influenced by the extant power of unions at the time, and yes congress was a handmaiden, like it is of just about any corporate trend. But it seems strange to pin it directly on "Washington".
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 12:00 PM on April 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
I thought your comment was great except for this part. You think the anti-manufacturing, anti-union paragons stem from the federal government? Maybe there could have been better enforcement of labor and competition laws and maybe you're just talking about lobbyists, but the hollowing of the US manufacturing sector was largely a defensive maneuver by US corporations against competitors. Yes, it was heavily influenced by the extant power of unions at the time, and yes congress was a handmaiden, like it is of just about any corporate trend. But it seems strange to pin it directly on "Washington".
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 12:00 PM on April 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
You think the anti-manufacturing, anti-union paragons stem from the federal government?
I know this wasn't directed at me, but I agreed with this point. Speaking to my example from Nebraska, what changed the economic structure of rural towns there was the Green Revolution and the agricultural policy the US committed to, hard, in the 1960s-80s: "get big or get out." That completely undermined the rural economy, causing depopulation and drawing wealth away from those areas. And that was Washington, in combination with large-scale agribusiness lobbies.
posted by Miko at 12:46 PM on April 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
I know this wasn't directed at me, but I agreed with this point. Speaking to my example from Nebraska, what changed the economic structure of rural towns there was the Green Revolution and the agricultural policy the US committed to, hard, in the 1960s-80s: "get big or get out." That completely undermined the rural economy, causing depopulation and drawing wealth away from those areas. And that was Washington, in combination with large-scale agribusiness lobbies.
posted by Miko at 12:46 PM on April 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
the hollowing of the US manufacturing sector was largely a defensive maneuver by US corporations against competitors
Well, yeah. But the corporations moved their operations offshore because they were allowed to do that, and because we decided to allow imports from low-wage countries with sketchy regulation and no labor protections. So, of course they did. Water flows downhill, and manufacturing flows to cheap labor and lax regulatory environments. If you poke a hole in the dam that's holding back the water, it's a bit weird to blame the water, and not whoever put the hole in the dam.
The vast integrated steel mills in Pennsylvania, just to use an example I'm familiar with, didn't close because we stopped needing steel. They closed at the end of a decades-long and extremely bitter fight between steel producers, manufacturers, shipping concerns, investment banks / financiers, labor unions and their opposition, "free trade" adherents, and even Cold War anti-Communists.
The US became a net importer of steel in the late 50s and early 60s due to a USW strike, which led manufacturers to petition for (and get) a relaxation of import restrictions. This "scab steel", largely from Japan and Europe, was the first of many blows to the domestic industry. (And to add insult to injury, much of it was made on equipment, particularly in Japan, that US taxpayers had helped finance as part of the postwar rebuilding effort, and was more efficient than the older mills in the US. The Japanese had basic oxygen furnaces courtesy of the US, while most US integrated producers did not... in part because the unions knew it would result in fewer jobs—this is one of the things that triggered the strike in '59. Shortsighted, certainly, but kinda understandable.)
Organized labor in the US didn't do themselves a ton of favors during this period (see: Hoffa, Jimmy), and various unions sometimes competed to get what they could for their members at the expense of other industries (e.g. the UAW's members benefited from low tariffs on steel but high tariffs on vehicles, while the USW's members benefited from the reverse; the Teamsters benefited from more finished-goods imports, vs the railroad workers who transported ore and coal). Anti-union forces were happy to let them slug it out, and then sweep up whoever was left at the end. (It's not like the UAW and Teamsters didn't eventually get theirs, too; it just took longer.)
Steel tariffs were a big-time political football in the US through the 60s (arguably to the present), with successive Administrations basically doing the bare minimum to restrict imports from places with significant state subsidies of their primary steel industries. There was a decision, as a matter of policy, in the US to promote free trade as an alternative to the Soviet system, and not to push too hard on the Europeans and Japanese when they undercut US producers. Rather than tariffs, there were a series of "voluntary restraint agreements" (VRAs) negotiated individually with other countries to try and manage international competition. The VRAs, somewhat perversely, led to higher-quality steel being imported, with more of the "value added" happening overseas, as well as to more imports by countries (e.g. Brazil) who weren't covered at the time. There's a long and sordid history there, if you're interested.
But the net result was a fatal weakening of the domestic steel industry and its unions, and I don't believe for a second this was accidental.
And once global trade had been used to break the steel industry—once one of the most strategically important, politically powerful labor/industry forces in the economy—it became the tool of choice.
One after another, domestic industries with significant organized labor presence (and high-paying, middle class jobs) were broken on the wheel of free trade, with the ensuing decline or stagnation in real income often papered over with cheap imports that kept inflation down. Sure, you might be working at a non-union "mini-mill" instead of the USX-operated integrated steel factory your father worked at, but you could still buy a refrigerator and a TV and a washing machine, so who cares? (I mean, he also had a guaranteed-benefit pension, and lifetime healthcare, and job security, but welcome to the New Economy.)
You can trace pretty much the same pattern with the auto industry. You had foreign competitors with new plants that were able to turn out a better product at lower cost than US producers, due in part to significant subsidization, and a lack of long-term obligations that the US producers had. US producers had outdated equipment and a labor force resistant to significant modernization and automation, which would have inevitably cost jobs. (Lots of people like to point and laugh at the US auto industry in the 70s, as though they just didn't realize there was a better way to make cars than body-on-frame construction like they'd been doing since the Model A. Of course they realized it. But retooling a production line to stamp unibody cars is a Big Deal, with huge upfront capital costs, and it doesn't require nearly as many people as traditional assembly did. It's a bitter pill for everyone involved, in the short term.) Even today, it's not clear that there would be a US automotive industry if it wasn't for significant import tariffs on finished cars and trucks.
So, yeah: I point the finger at Washington. That's not the only place to assign blame, of course. Lots of people benefited from globalization and the decline of heavy industry and its associated labor unions. They were the ones holding up the proverbial gun barrel and aiming it, and the captains of industry seemingly dove in front of it at every opportunity. But it was people in Congress and in the White House who pulled the trigger, over and over, starting arguably with Nixon in 1960, through to Trump in 2019.
And that, in my opinion, is the single biggest reason why we can't have nice things.
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:12 PM on April 19, 2022 [11 favorites]
Well, yeah. But the corporations moved their operations offshore because they were allowed to do that, and because we decided to allow imports from low-wage countries with sketchy regulation and no labor protections. So, of course they did. Water flows downhill, and manufacturing flows to cheap labor and lax regulatory environments. If you poke a hole in the dam that's holding back the water, it's a bit weird to blame the water, and not whoever put the hole in the dam.
The vast integrated steel mills in Pennsylvania, just to use an example I'm familiar with, didn't close because we stopped needing steel. They closed at the end of a decades-long and extremely bitter fight between steel producers, manufacturers, shipping concerns, investment banks / financiers, labor unions and their opposition, "free trade" adherents, and even Cold War anti-Communists.
The US became a net importer of steel in the late 50s and early 60s due to a USW strike, which led manufacturers to petition for (and get) a relaxation of import restrictions. This "scab steel", largely from Japan and Europe, was the first of many blows to the domestic industry. (And to add insult to injury, much of it was made on equipment, particularly in Japan, that US taxpayers had helped finance as part of the postwar rebuilding effort, and was more efficient than the older mills in the US. The Japanese had basic oxygen furnaces courtesy of the US, while most US integrated producers did not... in part because the unions knew it would result in fewer jobs—this is one of the things that triggered the strike in '59. Shortsighted, certainly, but kinda understandable.)
Organized labor in the US didn't do themselves a ton of favors during this period (see: Hoffa, Jimmy), and various unions sometimes competed to get what they could for their members at the expense of other industries (e.g. the UAW's members benefited from low tariffs on steel but high tariffs on vehicles, while the USW's members benefited from the reverse; the Teamsters benefited from more finished-goods imports, vs the railroad workers who transported ore and coal). Anti-union forces were happy to let them slug it out, and then sweep up whoever was left at the end. (It's not like the UAW and Teamsters didn't eventually get theirs, too; it just took longer.)
Steel tariffs were a big-time political football in the US through the 60s (arguably to the present), with successive Administrations basically doing the bare minimum to restrict imports from places with significant state subsidies of their primary steel industries. There was a decision, as a matter of policy, in the US to promote free trade as an alternative to the Soviet system, and not to push too hard on the Europeans and Japanese when they undercut US producers. Rather than tariffs, there were a series of "voluntary restraint agreements" (VRAs) negotiated individually with other countries to try and manage international competition. The VRAs, somewhat perversely, led to higher-quality steel being imported, with more of the "value added" happening overseas, as well as to more imports by countries (e.g. Brazil) who weren't covered at the time. There's a long and sordid history there, if you're interested.
But the net result was a fatal weakening of the domestic steel industry and its unions, and I don't believe for a second this was accidental.
And once global trade had been used to break the steel industry—once one of the most strategically important, politically powerful labor/industry forces in the economy—it became the tool of choice.
One after another, domestic industries with significant organized labor presence (and high-paying, middle class jobs) were broken on the wheel of free trade, with the ensuing decline or stagnation in real income often papered over with cheap imports that kept inflation down. Sure, you might be working at a non-union "mini-mill" instead of the USX-operated integrated steel factory your father worked at, but you could still buy a refrigerator and a TV and a washing machine, so who cares? (I mean, he also had a guaranteed-benefit pension, and lifetime healthcare, and job security, but welcome to the New Economy.)
You can trace pretty much the same pattern with the auto industry. You had foreign competitors with new plants that were able to turn out a better product at lower cost than US producers, due in part to significant subsidization, and a lack of long-term obligations that the US producers had. US producers had outdated equipment and a labor force resistant to significant modernization and automation, which would have inevitably cost jobs. (Lots of people like to point and laugh at the US auto industry in the 70s, as though they just didn't realize there was a better way to make cars than body-on-frame construction like they'd been doing since the Model A. Of course they realized it. But retooling a production line to stamp unibody cars is a Big Deal, with huge upfront capital costs, and it doesn't require nearly as many people as traditional assembly did. It's a bitter pill for everyone involved, in the short term.) Even today, it's not clear that there would be a US automotive industry if it wasn't for significant import tariffs on finished cars and trucks.
So, yeah: I point the finger at Washington. That's not the only place to assign blame, of course. Lots of people benefited from globalization and the decline of heavy industry and its associated labor unions. They were the ones holding up the proverbial gun barrel and aiming it, and the captains of industry seemingly dove in front of it at every opportunity. But it was people in Congress and in the White House who pulled the trigger, over and over, starting arguably with Nixon in 1960, through to Trump in 2019.
And that, in my opinion, is the single biggest reason why we can't have nice things.
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:12 PM on April 19, 2022 [11 favorites]
Some of it was deliberate policy choices to make (some kinds of) food cheap. Some of it was extractive industry going away because most of the resources were already extracted. Some of it was the side effect of the geopolitical consensus that free trade would bind nations closer together. Some of it was corporate greed. Some of it was the success of an anti-union ideological project. Some of it was technological advancement in automated manufacturing.
It's a result of a confluence of many factors, some quite deliberate and others that were unforseen side effects, without any one simple cause.
posted by wierdo at 2:19 PM on April 19, 2022
It's a result of a confluence of many factors, some quite deliberate and others that were unforseen side effects, without any one simple cause.
posted by wierdo at 2:19 PM on April 19, 2022
Tons of expensive cheap plastic crap. Tons of useless crap.
Tons of other shit-built items that financially stressed people actually might need or use that they can't afford to pay for good quality, or even buy elsewhere near them.
DS is just one more predator in this society.
Kozad:
Were I to believe in curses, of the first ones I would utter would involve Dollar General.
Eh, they're actually much further down on my list--way behind the damn payday lenders.
So, so, so many curses I have to utter.
posted by BlueHorse at 2:51 PM on April 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
Tons of other shit-built items that financially stressed people actually might need or use that they can't afford to pay for good quality, or even buy elsewhere near them.
DS is just one more predator in this society.
Kozad:
Were I to believe in curses, of the first ones I would utter would involve Dollar General.
Eh, they're actually much further down on my list--way behind the damn payday lenders.
So, so, so many curses I have to utter.
posted by BlueHorse at 2:51 PM on April 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
My hometown with the new DG? 114. I think you're on to something.
My granny worked at the Dollar General in Mountain Grove, Missouri, in the late '70s/early '80s (population ~4,000 at the time).
posted by kirkaracha at 4:27 PM on April 19, 2022
My granny worked at the Dollar General in Mountain Grove, Missouri, in the late '70s/early '80s (population ~4,000 at the time).
posted by kirkaracha at 4:27 PM on April 19, 2022
Still a population of about 4000. Big enough for a Walmart supercenter.
It's the sub 1000 places that only have various dollar stores. And it's really depressing to see these communities, that were once a thing, and now are just drying up and dieing. Just can't imagine how you are living somewhere where there is nothing left. No industry, no economy, just fucking dollar stores.
posted by Windopaene at 10:08 AM on April 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
It's the sub 1000 places that only have various dollar stores. And it's really depressing to see these communities, that were once a thing, and now are just drying up and dieing. Just can't imagine how you are living somewhere where there is nothing left. No industry, no economy, just fucking dollar stores.
posted by Windopaene at 10:08 AM on April 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
« Older Looking for a Brand Name That Will Stand Out? Try... | James Madison's Montpelier is purging descendant... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by signsofrain at 6:53 PM on April 18, 2022 [2 favorites]