In last week’s Beer-O-Nomics, we talked about Guam’s Trucking and Warehousing. Here’s the next section on Retail and Business. If you missed the previous sections, check it out.
RETAIL
Finally my beer has finished its multi-thousand mile journey to a store so that I can finally give up my hard earned $10 to take a 12 pack to a BBQ. Unfortunately, the poor sales person that sells it to me probably makes little over minimum wage. At the very least, this is money that economists tell us will circulate in our economy ten times because the wages of the sales clerk will be spent almost exclusively on island.
SO?
This little example and all that it entails and leaves out, one can think of all the workers in the states that earned income from our beer. From the truck mechanics to the toll gate operators to highway patrol officers; this is a great demonstration of how much the $10 I paid for my twelve pack left our economy immediately to enrich someone else’s community. For this reason, it is easy to see this system does not benefit the people of Guam as much as it should. We have to ask: why does it happen?
BUSINESS
Businesses exist for one purpose only, to make as much profit as possible with the least amount of risk or investment in the shortest amount of time. Therefore business owners are not inherently evil, deviously plotting how to destroy Guam’s economy (at least I hope not) but they are functioning within a system they have created in pursuit of their goal which has lead to the never-ending race to the bottom for our people and our economy. It is not the job of businesses to regulate the economy. History shows us that every politician caved in to the lobbying of businesses to deregulate. We see a huge shift in wealth from the bottom 90% of our population to the richest 1% and our economy crashes. So how do we fix it?
Read the next section on Building an Economy and Guam’s Market!