[Rhinoqulous]

I was talking with my girlfriend yesterday on the CEO of Starbuck's recent call for corporations to end political contributions and instead use that money to create more jobs, and we drifted into the whole buying local v corporate debate. Keeping with coffee as an example, I have some friends who co-own/operate a Coffee Shop, running it as a co-op. The vast majority of the money that goes into their shop stays local, the only money not staying right there in town is for the coffee they buy. You know when you buy a cup of coffee there the money by and large is staying in your community, helping your community thrive.

On the other end of the spectrum you have large corporations such as Starbucks. I don't have the exact figures in front of me for Starbucks, but I've commonly seen that it's only pennies on the dollar that actually stay in your community when you purchase from large corporations. Many products are bought in bulk by the corporate structure, so there is less support of other local business (such as mass produced frozen pastries v getting your pastries from the baker down the street). So, less of your dollar spent is actually staying in your community and helping it thrive, most of it going off to help gawd knows what (buying a new cottage in Aspen maybe?).

BUT, it's not like corporations are evil and sucking the life out of your community. Many corporations, such as Starbucks, provide benefits for their employees that smaller local businesses just can't, such as profit sharing, 401k's, and health coverage. My friend's coffee shop, while keeping the money local, provides none of these, and most likely never will be able to provide such things. So the employees of the corporations end up in better positions than they ever could be if they worked for a business that was overall better for their local community.

So my questions is, where does that leave you with spending your dollar? Do you spend locally, which benefits the local economy to a greater degree, or do you spend corporately, which gives more immediate benefit to the employees? I don't have an answer, just curious what others think about this.