Freeze the Economy

We are enjoying a rare snow day. It will probably be gone by tomorrow but it’s beautiful today. We went down to see the lake with the snow falling over it and it didn’t disappoint, although the snow was much heavier away from the shore. It’s funny, after growing up going to Lake Michigan, to see how our little lake here has its own “lake effect” on the weather.

Besides snowy strolling and sitting by the fire I have been packaging orders all day. Evidently everyone is snowed in and shopping online. Keep it up please! It makes such a difference to our family. Which leads me to the planned boycotts…

On February 28th The People’s Union is leading an “Economic Blackout” of major corporations who have caved to Trump and gotten rid of their DEI policies. Other activists are taking this even further, encouraging us to spend nothing at all on that day. The purpose of that is to demonstrate our power. So many people, from air traffic controllers to park rangers are being laid off en masse by Elon Musk (who just to be clear, makes $8 million per DAY in taxpayer money from his government contracts). 

So our tax dollars, which we are forced to shell out are lining Trump and Musk’s pockets instead of being used to provide services such as safe air travel or access to our national parks. National parks are taxpayer-owned by the way; you should be outraged that we aren’t being allowed to use them. Yellowstone, for example, is taking no new camping reservations for the foreseeable future. Next on the list for cuts? Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, as well as the Department of Education.

Social Security is often called an “entitlement program” by the GOP ~ it’s anything but. We are all forced to pay into it. Either your employer withholds your contribution from your paycheck or you pay them quarterly if you’re self-employed. The agreement is you pay into it and the government pays out your portion when you retire. Except, guess what? Now they are using that money to pay themselves instead of returning your money! There’s been talk about not issuing tax refunds this year as well. I don’t know about you but if I’m not getting a tax refund they’re going to have to chase me down for my taxes because I’m not paying them.

The upshot is, the people in charge of our government seem to have forgotten we are a government “by and for the people”. Not by and for billionaires and multi-national corporations. They need to be reminded of what will happen if we refuse to contribute to their economy.

Someone has released a whole calendar of boycotts for the month of March. I can’t find it right now but I’ve seen it all over social media. I was reading the comments on it and I was dismayed to see people advocating for a boycott of eBay amongst all the other corporations. Listen, eBay doesn’t produce anything. It is solely a site for individuals to sell online. There are a few corporations who sell on there but most sellers are sole proprietors like me. We are just regular people trying to make a living competing against these Goliaths. Unlike Amazon, who allows individual sellers but undercuts them selling the same merchandise (and double dips, profiting off selling fees as well), eBay only makes money from seller fees. So please, by all means, if you want to spend nothing on February 28th please go ahead. But if you are just trying to boycott large corporations please don’t include eBay in that group.

As most of you know, eBay saved us when my husband was disabled in a work accident when I was pregnant with our oldest son. I honestly don’t know where we would be without eBay. Other great stores and sites to support are Costco, Pinterest, Mercari, Poshmark, and Etsy. All are committed to preserving DEI and/or provide small sellers a way to make money online. Let’s buy from one another rather than give it to people who think things like safe air travel and access to hiking trails and public schools are “wasteful”.

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