Goodwill Galax VA ( attn: Dillon)

[moonshadow]

Hey Dillon or anyone else that gets this way from time to time.

You've GOT to check out the Goodwill in Galax Virginia! They've got more skirts than any other store I've seen. Excellent selection. A bit crowded though.

Purchased two more today for around $4 each.

Be advised Galax is somewhat redneck so it takes a little nerve. But you don't have to ask someone to open the fitting room for you saving you from that awkward moment with a handful of skirts while you wait for someone to fumble with their keys.

Just thought I'd share.

Any readers please feel free to use this thread to plug a good skirt shop. As a good skirt store can be hard to locate.

[Jetblasted]

My parents have a mountain house in Galax. I've been there once ...

[dillon]

I know this reply will upset some people, but I refuse to do business with Goodwill. When I was young, I knew people with disabilities who got practical training through Goodwill. They learned to repair bikes, appliances, tailor clothing, fix shoes, etc. Now they just get trained for data entry jobs. In NC, it was exposed that the couple who ran the state's Goodwill centers basically operated with next to zero oversight and had a combined salary and perqs approaching $800,000!

And I had just tried to donate a couple bikes my kids had outgrown, but they were rejected because of minor mechanical issues...a bent derailleur on one and broken brake handle on the other. The manager said they no longer trained anyone for anything but basic computer skills. No one could fix the bikes in Goodwill. Then she had the gall to tell me that if I got the bikes repaired, they would accept them. I restrained myself from telling her exactly what I thought should be done with the bikes, then sold them at a neighbors yard sale for a few bucks.

In addition to defrauding the public, I don't see Goodwill as doing any favors for the disabled. These folks, more than most, deserve help which, at the end of the day, leaves them with a sense of accomplishment. Teaching them to key numbers into little boxes doesn't strike me as that sort of help. Rather than looking back on a day when he revitalized something, he has spent hours of repetitive work that shows him absolutely nothing, and gets to look forward to doing the same thing tomorrow.

Okay, go ahead and blast me. I won't back away from this impression of Goodwill Industries.

[Caultron]

I've heard accusations of that sort of thing, but never any credible exposes.

I don't know about elsewhere, but here in Phoenix Goodwill stores are popping up everywhere. I have at least four within a few miles of my house, and I live in an affluent neighborhood. The stores are huge, and sometimes I wonder how they can meet expenses selling clothes for just a few dollars an item. Of course their raw material cost is essentially zero, but they must not be paying the workers very much either.

Then again, how many people and how much skill is required to run a few thousand items a day through a commercial laundry setup, attach tags, and hang them on the racks?

[dillon]

Sure. They can write donors a nice receipt for a charitable deduction and sell the donations dirt cheap and still make money. That's the taxpayer subsidy for execs living the high life. What business couldn't make money with a product that costs nothing and without taxes to pay?

[moonshadow]

No blast from over here.

Like Caultron, I too have heard the stories. I know they were in a little financial trouble some time ago.

I do think that if one decides to shop only at ethical businesses, it really narrows your choices down considerably. In fact, I don't know if are any businesses that don't take compete advantage of their employees.

I like you Dillon, and I mean this with all due respect, but private sector work SUCKS! Those republicans you speak of that are taking over your state, well, the CEO's of the private industry are the ones who paid to get them in the legislature. These CEO's are the ones passing their money worshiping ethics onto public sector representatives, and thus public sector jobs. Before long, all jobs, public and private will be awful.

I've witnessed board members discuss business.... how they view their employees as though they were just a commodity, nothing that has a heart that beats or a soul.

Even my employer has been accused of unethical business practices. Is there truth to it? Well it depends on how you look at it. Naturally on this public forum the last thing I'd want to do is bite the hand that feeds me. But I do know this much, they (my employer) may not be perfect, and have a few skeletons in their closet, but my position in their company keeps food on our table and a roof over our head. If everyone had a big problem with the CEO of my employer, and they boycotted the grocery store, it WON'T hurt him, he'll just sell out, cash in his millions and move to the Bahama's or something. It will hurt the people like me, and the other 13,500 other employees who make a modest living working at the stores.

So I don't worry about national ethical issues. A one man boycott won't bring it bring it down, and even if a larger boycott did, you're not hurting the CEO's and board members, it just puts regular people out of work. We're all in this together.

I'm on your side.... I'm just saying it's all a con-game anyway. I'm just trying to get stuff cheap.

[moonshadow]

I got a chuckle when I read a facebook page targeted at a boycott of our Bluefield VA store due to a dispute on an old Kroger building on the West VA side. On the page they encourage boycotters to not shop our store and instead go to walmart...

Walmart.... really?

Yeah, now there's a store of HIGH ethical standard it is!

[Caultron]

...What business couldn't make money with a product that costs nothing and without taxes to pay?

Well, they still have rent, utilities, maintenance, equipment, and other expenses to pay.

And they don't charge much for their merchandise.

The place is usually busy, though...

[crfriend]

NOTE: I am writing this as an individual contributor, NOT in my official capacity in this community.

I do think that if one decides to shop only at ethical businesses, it really narrows your choices down considerably. In fact, I don't know if are any businesses that don't take compete advantage of their employees.

Not only is it a question of taking advantage of employees, it's also a question of taking unfair advantage at every step in the business process -- and sometimes the worst offenders of all are the ones that spend huge sums on PR ("Public Relations"). I could name a few here, but won't as their lawyers out-gun mine. Beware the "soft and cuddly" PR version of things; what lies behind is as cold, calculating, and unfeeling as it gets -- it's all about the money, and always has been.

Business has always been a bit of a dirty game, and taking advantage where it can be had has always been a part of it. However, there comes a point where lines are clearly crossed, and that's where there needs to be accountability -- right to the very top so that the individuals calling the shots feel the pain directly.

Before long, all jobs, public and private will be awful.

Most already are, and those that aren't soon will be. Unless you're at the top, you're "little people". That's the trajectory that the USA has been on for 35 years now, and the pace is accelerating exponentially. I predict the ultimate death of the US "Middle Class" by the end of this decade; good jobs by which one can support a reasonable standard of living will soon be unavailable, to be replaced by "McJobs" paying near-minimum wage, and folks will need to work two or three of them (assuming they're available) to just break even. There are already three or four "rush hours" to the day where I live with people not just commuting to and from their "main job", but commuting from one McJob to another as well.

The ultimate upshot will be two classes -- the Elites and a permanent underclass consisting of everybody else (99.99% of the population). The transfer of wealth -- real wealth, of the sort that takes generations to accrue -- will be complete.

I've witnessed board members discuss business.... how they view their employees as though they were just a commodity, nothing that has a heart that beats or a soul.

This is nothing new. Even the term "Human Resources" institutionalises the notion -- workers are resources to be used up, similarly to the way that soldiers are expended on the battlefield. Needless to say, neither the generals nor the executives are part of this bloodshed -- they should be,.

So I don't worry about national ethical issues. A one man boycott won't bring it bring it down, and even if a larger boycott did, you're not hurting the CEO's and board members, it just puts regular people out of work. We're all in this together.

We should have been worrying about it thirty-five or forty years ago when it was just getting started (recall how an exponential works). It could have made a difference then; now it's too late -- we may as well go along like good little lemmings. Or lambs to the slaughter.

[Jim]

The ultimate upshot will be two classes -- the Elites and a permanent underclass consisting of everybody else (99.99% of the population). The transfer of wealth -- real wealth, of the sort that takes generations to accrue -- will be complete.

A likely scenario, unfortunately. But then what comes next is revolution, probably not a peaceful one. And some of the elites know this. That is not a good future for the elites, either.

Maybe there is still time to work for peaceful change. At least Sanders (whom I have plenty of disagreements with) is raising the issue.

[crfriend]

But then what comes next is revolution, probably not a peaceful one. And some of the elites know this. That is not a good future for the elites, either.

A revolution would have, perhaps, been possible 35 years ago. Not today. The surveillance power of the State (which the Elites control, lock, stock, and barrel) precludes that. It's rumoured that J. Edgar Hoover (director of the FBI in the late 1950s and early '60s) once joked that, "If three people meet in this city (Washington, DC) to discuss treason, two of them will report to me in the morning." It's not a joke now. And the Elites know that.

As far as the elites knowing that it's unsustainable in the long term, I rather suspect they neither know nor care; they have blinders on which likely precludes seeing any farther then the next business quarter. They can always rule with brutality anyway as is beginning to happen already.

Maybe there is still time to work for peaceful change. At least Sanders (whom I have plenty of disagreements with) is raising the issue.

I doubt that any meaningful change will happen any time in the foreseeable future; the window of opportunity has already closed.

The issue can be raised all anybody wants; however, precisely nothing is going to get done about the matter as long as the Elites have an absolute lock on power. Has anyone ever noticed that no matter how much the two political parties in the US fight and bicker, at the end of the day the stuff that's important to the Elites always passes without so much as a peep? Both parties answer to the same paymasters; the reset is merely circus. It's not even The Greatest Show On Earth -- more like a bad television re-run.

[dillon]

I have mixed feelings about a lot of these issues. In general, I am in favor of anyone getting rich if they do so by the idealist vision of hard work and wise investing. Unfortunately, like Carl, I think that path is more fantasy than reality, and that most of the time quick wealth is accumulated by deceit, exploitation, and cheating. A prime example is the infamous Koch brothers, who travel around giving "seminars" on the American Dream, the nauseating proclamations that earthly wealth is God's reward for belief in Christ and Free Enterprise. It's a bizarre road-show of this sick religion that's a hybrid of fundamentalist Christianity and lassiez-faire capitalism.

What the Kochs never mention is that they made their money the old-fashioned way - they inherited it. The infamous brothers were born billionaires. Their main claim to business success was continuing the family tradition of stealing oil fron Indian reservations by a practice they called "overage", where their trucks would pick up 7500 gallon loads of crude from remote walking beam pumps but report only 5000 gallons back to the tribes, and now by the rampant expansion of fracking.

I just wish the truth could be told and lived; the Europeans do a better job of this than Americans and Canadians; they have a more mature, realistic, and less propagandized point of view about the promise and limitations of it. First, I do believe that free trade and free markets are the most realistic means of providing for the greater good and reducing the chance of war between great powers. But, the strongest free market evangelists need to acknowledge that the actual source of a free market is, ironically, big and strong government. It is only by the rules of government establishing a level playing field (or one somewhat akin to level) that makes free markets possible, and free enterprise workable.

In lieu of a popularly controlled government that responds to a principled public, the capitalist system becomes a race to the top for the very few, and a race to the bottom for the vast remainder, until we have a situation like Czarist Russia, a century ago; a tiny oligarchy in cahoots with an absolutist ruling authority and the rest of the population in hopeless, powerless, poverty. I do fear that we are headed that way. The first sign of this was the abandonment of fixed benefit pensions in favor of shams like the 401k. Now everyone's future is tied to the whims of a market over which the worker has no influence. It is a dismal legacy to hand our children. IMO, the tax code should be fixed to reward two costs to business only: pensions and healthcare, and putting all employers on a level playing field in that regard.

[moonshadow]

Deleted anything that didn't have to do with skirts, or awesome places to buy them.

...


... well, guess there's nothing left!

[moonshadow]

I'll just say that we're @#$%ed.

Which brings me back full circle to getting a great deal on a skirt.

And wearing skirts in general, as well as enjoying the other freedoms of life. Because believe me, chances are eventually these freedoms will perish, and we'll all be chained together.

[moonshadow]

Deleted anything that didn't have to do with skirts, or awesome places to buy them.

...


... well, guess there's nothing left!