Open Bench Project

Making people feel good about their work is the best thing we make at OBP. This intro to woodworking level 2 class has some awesome pieces…

Soon you will start seeing ads about buying for the holiday season. Please pay attention to where you buy from.

Every single business that comes to your town from somewhere else is automatically in the mining game. They are in the extraction business. If they weren’t extracting money from your town, they would no longer be in business. This is their model. McDonald’s takes more money out of your town than they put in, I promise. The national developer leaves your town with more money in their pocket than they spent. I guarantee it. If this wasn’t the case, we would simply not have national developers or national chains.

It is not to say they are doing anything wrong, but let’s be clear about what is going on, and that is- you are losing. Every time you welcome a business from out of town, you are participating in the extraction form of economic development. You are being paid a small amount to have someone remove something of greater value. You are giving away value, but telling yourself you are coming out ahead. The math just doesn’t add up. It can’t.

Sure, you can say a company added jobs or spent money on an investment and stop at the first step in the equation. But it requires looking just a little bit harder to realize that the jobs and investments were just a mechanism to extract something of greater value. The fast food company puts a little money in at the beginning so they can take more away every day after. The national housing developer is the same, and the national bank is the same. Because they don’t grow with your local ingredients, they have to take away something of greater value. This is extraction economic development and every time your town takes part in it, your town is getting poorer.

This is how capitalism works and while I am not arguing against it, I am arguing that cities and towns have options in how they chose to participate. I suggest gardening is superior to mining. The economic development industrial complex has convinced us that all jobs are good jobs and that all investment is good investment and this notion is laughable.

New intro to woodworking classes online for January! These will sell quickly so best to jump on them soon. Or…they will make a great holiday gift. Learn more at OBPortland.org