The Consumer Force

I find myself wishing I had a West Point education and knew the ins and outs of raising an army.

R and I were doing errands the other day and I noticed a small tent city set up in the Railyard Park. “What’s going on over there?” I asked. It looked a little ramshackle compared to the typical arts and crafts fair.

“Those are the Wall Street protestors.” She said. “They’ve had it with corporate greed… and the dismal state of the economy.” Bless their hearts but c’mon, camping out in a public park is not going to do it. The source of all truth reveals the tent group calls itself “OccupySantaFe.” Their web site prattles on about keeping homeless people out of the encampment, kitchen rules, and asks campers to “self-regulate” and refrain from “having sex in group tents.” Got that, campers? The who we are page says nothing about who they are. O… K.

Meanwhile across the street the teeny Whole Foods parking lot is the usual snarl, and at the other end of Cerrillos Road the mega parking lot at the new Super Walmart is packed. This is exactly as big business wants it and nothing will change so long as we the consumers continue to stream in their doors and hand over our hard won cash.

So I come to organizing The Consumer Force. We have tremendous power in spending our cash, but each of us as an army of one, forget it. If we could get together the strategy would be simple: hit them in the pocketbook. Instead of mindlessly flocking to the big greedies, we take our trade to small business. Yes, suck it up and stop doing business with Walmart and the rest of them. Proprietors of small (i.e., struggling) shops will practically kiss our feet to get us in the door.

And conserve. As an example, being there is no small business when it comes to oil, here’s one of my favorites. I’ve actually done this. When you drive your car, whatever type or size it is, raising the tire pressure 10%, timing deceleration approaching red lights so you don’t always come to a stop, and slowing down in general can improve mpg by 20%. Yes, 20%. You could achieve even better. At the end of the week this equates to some genuine cash in your pockets as opposed to those of Big Oil.

Imagine if Walmart, ExxonMobile, Bank of America, or you pick saw a 20% decline in sales in the course of a year… ha ha! They’d come crawling and begging to us. We’re talking big, big change quietly done. Small businesses would flourish, there’d be more cash in your and my pockets (otherwise known as a fair distribution of wealth) and big business would suddenly be interested in what our terms are.

All this by spending and consuming wisely. Troops, are you with me?

Gordon Bunker