The talk now is all about stimulating the economy and there are plenty of arguments about what will, or will not, work in a recovery plan. If you think I'm going to join in that fray, think again. But I am putting in another plug for buying handmade or small volume products directly from the people who make them. Here's why: When you buy directly from people who personally create products, you immediately energize their economic base and you get something uncommon in return, something that has higher value by virtue of being rare. That translates into higher resale value. It will cost about the same as a mass-produced product, but you don't have to feed a greedy globe spanning supply chain.
Think about it. You can spend a dollar on a mass-produced product and get something worth about 20 cents. The factory worker(s) who made it probably got less than a nickel (combined), and your purchase won't put another penny in their pocket(s). Who you will pay are the corporate entities behind the scheme, their marketing machines, their shareholders, and the store that has to make a profit on the sale. But, if you spend that dollar instead with someone who made the item by hand, they get a dollar and you get at least a dollar worth of value. This is so wonderfully simple and sensible it feels almost exotic in our mass-produced world of abstracted logic.
