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Column
By: Zach Mitcham
The Banks County News
December 8, 2004
A look at the retail
revolution
We live at a time when — as I learned
this weekend — you can actually buy a small, color TV for
$37 or a lawnmower for $99. But go to a ball game, or the movies,
or the hospital, and watch how prices suddenly change: The cost
of a soft drink swells to six times more than usual; one aspirin
tablet in a hospital room suddenly costs more than a combo meal
at a drive-through.
As I grow older, I’m more intrigued by the stories behind
pricing. These things shape our world on small and large scales.
Economics is not some boring professor-speak. The science of
supply and demand is relevant to every deal we ever make. And
we all know we need to develop a certain degree of savvy on pricing
or risk being played for fools.
For instance, if you don’t know why a car that should be
valued at $5,000 is being sold for $2,500, if you just take on
faith that you’re getting a good deal, then you risk being
duped. Without skepticism, you sacrifice leverage to the seller,
who may wave and smile as you drive away with a blown gasket.
Markets are often described as “forces of nature.”
It’s true, the mass of individuals looking out for themselves
creates a real force in a collective sense. This seemed very
apparent to me as I joined the sea of people looking for a ticket
to a Georgia game this year. The supply — the scalpers —
met the demand — the fans. Sometimes one has an edge over
the other. For instance, factors like bad weather give the buyers
power, and other factors, like a more hyped game, such as UGA
vs. LSU in October, give scalpers the edge.
Everyone looks for that leverage to better himself. The bargaining
edge can change quickly for individuals and groups, but the change
may also be gradual.
And it may also be profound, affecting most everyone.
For instance, for some time now we’ve seen manufacturing
jobs go overseas. We’ve seen the banner of “Buy American”
crumble, because if you want merchandise from a big store you
really can’t hold to that ideal, not when so much now comes
from China.
Ultimately, price matters most. Because it’s a force of
nature — human nature. We want the best deal. Period.
All the other issues, the loss of jobs to overseas firms, the
growing U.S. trade deficit to China and other countries, these
concerns are, of course, secondary to our own well being. Fact
is, this makes sense. You have to look out for your kids, your
household.
But the big economic picture matters too. That’s obvious
whenever we fill up our cars and note skyrocketing gas prices.
And if we look, it’s obvious that economic power in this
country has shifted in a truly monumental way in recent years.
And no, I’m not referring to our two-party system.
What I mean is that for decades manufacturers dictated prices
to retailers, because retailers were diverse. There were many
stores, and if one store chose not to deal with a manufacturer,
then that manufacturer didn’t suffer much of a hit. “You
don’t want our socks? O.K. fine, we know a hundred stores
who do.”
But as major retailers like Wal-Mart and Target have grown bigger
and bigger, they have taken control of the price.
They are much-maligned for that power, but the reasons for their
dominance are really a mixed bag of good and bad. They truly
do put the squeeze on employees and competition with methods
that make anyone with a conscience cringe. At the same time,
they are remarkably efficient. For instance, Wal-Mart has used
barcode technology better than anyone, giving them the edge in
tracking sales trends and stocking their shelves accordingly.
But apart from whatever good or bad feelings people have about
Wal-Mart, the fact that such stores are so dominant these days
has profoundly altered our economy. Now major retailers can say,
“We want socks at this price.” And if the manufacturer
balks, the retailer can reply, “Well, we sell 38 percent
of socks in America? How would you like to lose our account?”
In response, manufacturers lower their prices. They have to.
But they can’t cut the quality of their product and expect
to compete. So they look at their people. And they cut pay for
employees. They cut benefits. They cut jobs. They cut and run
— to China, to Thailand, to places where labor can be hired
for 50 cents an hour.
Labor unions in America are often blamed for the flight of manufacturing
companies overseas. Of course, there have been plenty of examples
of unions making unreasonable demands over the years.
But the manufacturing/retail shift of power far overshadows any
effort by labor to tilt the balance. A union may try to add weight
to its end of the supply-demand equation, but they ultimately
have no real power nowadays, not when retailers have all the
leverage and continually pay less and less for manufactured goods.
So as manufacturers are continually forced to cut expenses to
meet retail price demands, we see more workers laid off, or denied
health care coverage, or paid less.
Meanwhile, major retailers load their shelves with four out of
five products shipped over from China. That “Buy American”
slogan is now just a faint echo of the past, finally washed away
by a river of lower retail prices from who cares where.
I’m really not trying to depress us all. And I’m
not intending to throw blame right or left. No, I just feel these
are economic realities worth noting. We remember the industrial
revolution. I think we will also remember the “retail revolution”
in years to come.
And I think it’s good for people to remember that in the
“race to the bottom” in retail prices, there is an
accompanying “race to the bottom” in wages and benefits
on the manufacturing side. This is true both here and abroad.
To act as if there is no deeper cost in this for the society
as a whole, well, then you have to ask yourself, “who’s
being duped?”
Zach Mitcham is an editor with MainStreet Newspapers.
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Column
By: Shar Porier
The Banks County News
December 8, 2004
Lessons
to be learned from Chernobyl
On an April day in 1986, a horrific accident
occurred in Russia.
The release of steam from a nuclear reactor sent an intense cloud
of radiation across hundreds of square miles in Russia.
Chernobyl had belched and set loose a demon that killed man and
creature alike, rendered cities and towns uninhabitable, uprooted
families and hurled a government from the perch of the powerful.
A documentary about a group of Irish women who regularly visit
children’s hospitals in the 250-square mile contaminated
zone around the dead nuclear power plant aired recently. The
view of life in the cities and villages, some within just 70
miles of the plant, was a cause of great concern.
Some years ago, I came across a book called “Ground Zero.”
In it was page after page after page of personal accounts of
the radiation exposure to people near and downwind of the Nevada
nuclear bomb test sight. Our government claimed the dosage was
within tolerable limits, but follow-up research and the study
of the frequent occurrence of various forms of cancer showed
undeniably the actual exposure was far greater. The photos of
the people and their stories about the years of testing were
very graphic and disturbing, to say the least.
Yet, the accounts of those Americans were nothing compared with
what was happening to the children of Chernobyl. These Irish
women brought a horrendous problem from the shadows into the
light. The children of Chernobyl are paying the ultimate price
20 years later for the careless neglect of their government.
In less than 20 years, genetic mutations have created a populace
of thousands of severely deformed children left on doorsteps
of children’s “hospitals” alone, unwanted,
unloved.
The extent of their disabilities was beyond comprehension. Some
barely looked human.
There was a severely retarded baby girl whose brain was not in
her skull. It hung in a bag as big as her head attached only
by the spinal cord. There was nothing that could be done. She
was not expected to live.
There was a young boy whose liver and kidneys were not inside
his body cavity, but outside, flopping around on his back. He,
too, was considered terminal.
There were others, many, many others with deformed faces, hands
and feet. Contorted features and contorted bodies. The genetic
code had run amok and continues to run amuck among the populace
affected directly by the fallout.
It was hard to watch. Hard to absorb the utter chaos that the
human genome had undergone due to radiation exposure.
One type of defect is so prevalent it has been named the “Chernobyl
heart.” Genetic damage causes holes to occur in the heart
and within days of birth, most children die because families
nor hospitals have access to or the money for surgeons who can
perform such operations.
There is a group of American doctors who visit the region periodically
and perform free open-heart operations to the patients with the
most potential to survive. Choosing the candidates can only be
described as heartbreaking.
For other children in their pre-teens who have managed to survive
with defective hearts, they are fast approaching a point of no
return. A heart transplant is their only hope.
One young girl of 11, gaunt and thin, came in unannounced to
meet the doctors and seek their help. But, she was not on their
list. For her, life would be measured in weeks not years.
There are too few organ donors, too little money and reluctant
Russian doctors whose Hippocratic oath appeared not to apply
to these abandoned children left lying in their own excrement,
untouched and unloved.
One would think that with the unmistakable diagnosis of “genetics
gone wild” that the government would have moved people
away from dangerously contaminated areas. But, no. Instead, Russian
people live in cities, some a mere 75 miles away from the disaster
area where Cesium 134 has been found in ground water, plants,
animals and people.
And though the readings of high radiation contamination, 40 times
the limit of a lifetime everyday, are known, the government has
determined the levels “acceptable” and therefore
the children do not qualify for government funding to help battle
the cancers and defects that will take their lives in abominable
ways.
Shockingly, neither do a number of hospitals caring for them.
One doctor lamented the state of affairs and was reduced to tears
talking about the uncertain future of his hospital and the children
due to the loss of funding.
Even more perplexing is that over a million people still live
in what is considered a hot-zone where radiation has permeated
the ground and drinking water and is poisoning the residents
every day.
It got me to thinking. So, what does that mean for us? What would
happen if the unthinkable happened here at one of our aging plants?
Or what if terrorists decide to target a nuclear power plant?
What is our government doing to secure these numerous sites?
You would expect beefing up plant security and establishing no-fly
zones to be major concerns of Homeland Security. This isn’t
so.
In another documentary about the Indian Point nuclear power plant
that lies just three miles upstream from New York City, security
guards, under anonymity, said they had had little training in
protecting the plant and not enough staff to do it. The filmmakers
flew numerous times over and all around the plant for nearly
30 minutes with no reaction at all. They also were able to walk
around the plant and film it, again with no intervention.
Sitting on the shores of Lake Erie, on the edge of the beautiful,
wildlife sanctuary Crane Creek, sits the Davis-Besse nuclear
plant. There were thousands in opposition to the placement of
the plant. Towns and cities in a 200-mile radius turned out for
the first public hearing. Their concerns for the wildlife and
their own lives were given no heed.
There have been many serious problems from the beginning. One
reactor has been shut down for nearly 10 years due to construction
flaws. Incidentally, the corporation now owning the plant is
FirstEnergy, a subsidiary of Halliburton.
I met and talked with a few of the engineers over a late-night
snack one night in November during a trip home last year. They
didn’t seem to be very positive about the repairs or the
progress they were making. The corporate heads were pressuring
them to get the job done and done quickly. Money was being lost
and they need to crank “Bessie” back up to full production.
One said he had never seen a reactor site with so many flaws.
In looking through documents on the NRC website, the plant was
put back on line earlier this year.
Many of the nation’s plants are aging, like Bessie, and
some have belched out a plume of radioactive steam, including
the Savannah River plant. Such incidents are spinned with the
familiar phrase: “no harm to the general public.”
But, those of us who remember Love Canal and Chernobyl know that
disaster waits. In a matter of minutes, things can go very wrong
and lives changed forever.
Will there come a day when the nuclear beast shows itself here?
Will childbirth become a nightmare? Will we have babies born
with flippers for hands and feet or brains hanging from spinal
cords?
Inevitably, the answer is yes and it probably won’t be
due to terrorists’ bombs. No, accountability will lie with
the energy companies and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That
is, of course, if there is someone left to hold them accountable.
Shar Porier is a reporter for The Banks County News.
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