Malls And Online Shopping

The new issue of Time magazine ran an article about Malls and listed the shocking numbers of mall closures and that another quarter of those still existing could go out of buisness in the next five years. That’s not just stores that are inside the mall, that’s the entire mall complex! One figure it listed was that between 2010-2013, mall visits declined 50% due to online shopping. Now, I buy stuff online, but it’s only because the local stores no longer carry the items I’m buying. They used to carry everything I needed, but not any longer. I think this is one of the reasons why people are turning to online shopping. But, what the article and everybody else doesn’t seem to be taking into consideration is this: When I shop online, practically everything is mailed to me through the United States Postal Service - the post office. As we have seen in this day and age, no business is guaranteed to last forever and many fine businesses have closed in the last 10 years or so - Circuit City, Borders, Waldenbooks, Sir Beef, Hughes Electronics, New York Life Insurance & Trust Company, Bumper to Bumper Auto Parts, Western Auto, Service Merchandise, Kinney Shoes, Thom McAn Store, Revco, Rexall Drugs, On Cue, Woolworth’s, Heilig-Meyers, A.J. Bayless grocery strores, Builder’s Square, Coast to Coast Hardware, Blockbuster Music, Sam Goody, Tower Records and literally hundreds of more businesses! I was so shocked to find out about some of these that I just had to stop looking. Many of those stores are ones I used to shop at and now they’re gone! Where will all this lead us as a collective?

The point I started to make above was that the U.S. Post Office is just another business and as we have seen, nothing is guaranteed to last forever. I have predicted for several years now that the government seems intent on destroying the post office. Why else would they give up the multimillion dollar market of stamp collecting and switch to only stick-on stamps? As stamp collectors know, stick-on stamps don’t last. After a few years, the glue seeps through the front of the stamp, making them un-collectable. And just a couple years back, the government got out of the market big-time of mailing people’s Social Security checks, Army disability checks, etcetera, and went to direct deposit. It’s like they are morphing into an entity that no longer requires the post office. Why would they be setting themselves up to be post office-free? Could it be, that like me, they know the post office can’t and won’t last forever?

What are you going to do when you can’t buy what you want at a local store and you have to resort to buying it online, only to find that it can’t be mailed to you? Where are you going to get the things you need to live on then? That’s why I say support your local stores now before it’s too late.

The picture is of the University Mall, located at Carbondale, Illinois. I took it on September 3rd, 2016, with my Minolta X-370s and Kodak Portra 160 film.

Get Your Money On Time, Every Time

Direct deposit is not for me. I firmly believe it is nothing more than an attempt to get people out of the habit of handling cash. I also believe that because of it, there could come a time when people will have to pay with a chip implanted in their arm. Don't misunderstand me, that technology is already here and being used. It's just that it could become the only method for payment someday and that worries me. What if the Government decides you don't need to eat any longer because you have nothing to add to society? Your chip will stop working and you'll be left out in the cold. You will eventually starve to death if you can't purchase food.

But this blog is about something else; it's about the attempt to get Direct Deposit in place and have everybody using it.

I like the feel of real money in my hands; I always have. The United States Government, however, wants you to believe that having real money in your hands is too dangerous and could lead to fraud, theft and who knows what else.

I served in the United States Army and got an injury that will impact me negatively for the rest of my life. Because of this, I get a small disability check from the Government every month. Not a month goes by where I don't get the above slip inserted into the envelope that carries my check. You'll notice the top line says it all - "Get your money on time, every time." Well, I believe I should get my money on time and every time, no matter what method is used to deliver it to me. If the Government uses one of their departments to deposit it directly into my account, that's a part of the Government. If they employ the United States Postal Service to mail it to me, that's another arm of the Government. I should be able to expect either method to work correctly so that my check gets to me "on time, every time." In fact, I demand that both methods work equally as well and that I be allowed to choose which one I want.

For the United States Government to tell me point blankly that unless I use direct deposit I might not get my check on time every time - that's the same thing as them admitting that mailing it to me is not reliable. Everyone knows how reliable the United States Post Office is, don't we? Not very reliable at all. The United States Government should do their job and make sure the Post Office is efficient - it's their obligation to do so by taking our money from us in the form of taxes. For them to allow the Post Office to falter and become disreputable and unusable is nothing more than a crime. Of course, I know why they're doing it. See the opening statements I made above about direct deposit and the phasing out of cash.

So, all I ask you is to look at these little "nudges" from the United States Government, think about them and then ask yourself that by doing devious little things like this, where are they taking America? Is it really somewhere you want to be?