Monday Musings: Our Troubled Economy

I was watching the news a few minutes ago and they were discussing the drop in shopping from last holiday season compared to this one. It seems as though every facet of big business is going to need a bail-out sooner rather than later. Then a thought struck me. I've been seeing a lot of badges on blogs with people pledging to buy handmade/mom-made and the like and I myself have been shopping on a smaller scale and supporting more Work-At-Home mom's and small town businesses. It seems in the hustle and bustle of this modern world we live in, there is a kind of satisfaction that you get when your money is going to help someone who really needs it, as opposed to padding the wallet of some big wig CEO.

This leads me to wonder, are the big department stores really being hurt by the economy, or, perhaps, the "strange" new conscience that has made an appearance in the collective American mindset. I mean, can the mega corps really be victims at all? The poor pitiful rich guy sitting in his mansion having to, what, cut an extra trip to the Hamptons out of his schedule? Or is it the family who has invested their money in a new product idea, and after selling successfully, on a relatively small scale, can for the first time actually take a vacation? Hmmmm, which one evokes more emotion? With all the talk of raising our consciousness and helping our fellow man, it would only make sense that we would first see the product of those changes here, at home.

Now, am I completely ready to "pledge" only buying handmade or mom-made? Well, to be completely honest, I can't. Not financially. I still make rather frequent trips to Wally World (or Gates of Hell, as it is referred to in some of my circles) because finances require it, but then I've always been a Wal-Mart kind of girl on some level. I love a good bargain. I have, however, made a lot of changes in the products that I buy, and I am definitely buying more of our goods from smaller businesses. And if it came down to a corporate bail-out or a mompreneur bail-out, well, I think you can guess where my multibillion dollar check would go.

So, what do you think? Am I just off my rocker? Is my mind running off on crazy tangets, when the real reason is just that the economy sucks, plain and simple? I dunno. You tell me!