Summer Downsizing: 31 Ways to Jumpstart Your Local Economy

for many years.

The suggestions are good but the approach is a bit off-putting to those of us who have been doing this sort of stuff for quite a while.

(I may have misread this--will go back and see if I missed something.)

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Lot of these ideas are commendable but they involve a trade-off: giving up big chunks of free time to become more self-sufficient. If you're going to be out working in your community garden or bartering for goods, there will be less time for surfing the Internet, indulging in hobbies, taking vacations, etc. Maybe that's not a bad thing, but it will make our daily life different, and perhaps more physically tiring (but hopefully less psychologically stressful). The big decision will be whether to give up the day job, and its security (what's left of it), for supporting yourself in other ways. Subsistence farming is not a lot of fun -- ask the Third World about it.

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Great article...even if we only do one or two of these things.

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Since the 50's, capitalism has moved the US to excessive waste in every facet of life. Labor costs were cut by using welding instead of nuts and bolts, thus rendering ordinary household appliances unrepairable. Then capitalism introduced "planned obsolescence" which meant that such appliances were built NOT to last. Things not only broke down before their time, but now couldn't be repaired, forcing people to buy new over and over.

Then hiring of clerks was cut back in favor of "self-service" and that resulted in so much shoplifting that excessive packaging was invented to make items hard to hide. Today, the amount of packaging required to make up for lack of clerks is truly obscene, and destructive to the planet. And we pay for the packaging along with the merchandise.

Sixty years ago, companies succeeded by pleasing the customer; today, corporations eliminate needed products because they don't bring enough profit, quality is practically non-existent, and quantities are cleverly reduced by various tricks. The large Hershey's chocolate bar used to be 8 oz. Hershey has been thinning down that bar, while leaving the visual effect the same, and now that bar is 4.4 oz. Wet foods, like cottage cheese, used to go by liquid measure. A 16 oz container held a pint. Then corporations discovered that they could use weight by volume, so a 16 oz container, by weight contained nearly 1/4 less. Then they shrank the containers in a manner that left them looking the same. Today, we get a little over half what we used to get in a container of cottage cheese.

Hand-held electric mixers have such cheap and inferior motors that their shrillness threatens the cook's hearing. A CD player quits and cannot be repaired. Buy new.

Before capitalism ran amok, deep in the Great Depression, a woman of modest means could buy a shoe with a double A vamp and a quadruple A heel. Today's women don't even know what that means; it means the shoe actually fit the foot, and supported it. Socks used to come in graduated sizes (no bunching at the heel and lumping in the shoe); now they come in small, medium, and large. Take it or leave it. Which is capitalism's basic motto, based on exploitation of workers and consumers alike. Rip off the many to benefit the few.

So, all that unnecessary manufacturing in order to assure continued profits from what used to be durable goods. Really, there ought to be laws. And there are. They're called the laws of nature, and we have broken most of them. Bye, bye, human race.

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As our President says..We should volunteer.
But there only saying that to save the goverment money..I'm sure many people give and never take credit for it..Atleast I do.
Yes we do need to buy solar panels and grow gardens but those who have the money have no interest in it and those who need to do it have no money..Yea and the rest of us are either laid off or working 2 jobs..Right now I'm laid off and yes I'm lucky enough to be growing a garden..But people who live in cities always don't have that option..There is so many laws and restrictions and plus so much hybird plants that they can't reuse there seed.
But I guess that's about "Profits" 4 big companies.I also work on my own cars but what about the people who can't afford the tools let alone the gas and parts? I'm just so dam glad I only have me to take care of..I feel 4 the people who are raising kids..I know many people growing there gardens and nothing grows and the first thing I ask is are they using Chemicals and they say yes..Not me and they can't see why mines doing so good and there's are barley alive! haha..Nature will take care of us if we let her.

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A friend of mine came up with what seems to be proving itself a sort of worthwhile idea. He's not sure the idea is his, but the plan is getting results.

http://lubbockpep.blogspot.com/

The premise of his employment project is that we, you and me, can rebuild America 1 job at a time. Not sure how true that is, but he's putting people to work, so it's hard to argue with. But, and this is a big BUT, it's not costing anyone anything but a little time, so what's the harm.

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Most of those things the lower classes already do. Course it is a Yes! magazine article, whose audience is owning class do-gooders. More power to 'em if more of 'em do even five of the things on the list.

I loved the community and the neighbor ones best. We do a lot of those already, have been for years. All good stuff. 1-11 are strictly for rich people though. You gotta have money in the system they dictated. I just hope the lot of 'em listen good and try them out. While they're at it, I wonder if they might modify some landlord tenant laws so we "renters-against-our-will" can stop flushing 70% of our net income down the hopper just so the rich landlord can get richer while we continue to see our income decline.

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