Laguna, let's take an economic sample of, say, detergent. You say you get detergent at Walmart, so that's a good place to start.

You buy your detergent at Walmart; the price is better than anywhere else. You tell your friends to buy that detergent at Walmart, for the same reason. Walmart begins to corner the local market on that detergent. Walmart also does not use a distributor; they deal with the manufacturer. So they demand a lower price in your area. The manufacturer capitulates, and the price comes down, helping bring consumers from other areas to get that cheap detergent. Sales begin to decline from regional outlets that used to trade heavily in your detergent. Walmart begins poaching its own sales in other areas, and turns again to the manufacturer: give is a price-break across the board. The manufacturer capitulates again, and Walmart customers get the best price. Eventually, the distributor decides not to carry the product, because they can't make any profit selling it to the local merchants. Walmart becomes the sole merchant for your detergent. But that's not good enough: Walmart presents the case to the manufacturer that, as the sole merchant, they want the product for LESS than cost (this is not uncommon for Walmart). The manufacturer, having no other outlet for sales, once again concedes to Walmart's demands. Walmart clears out every single piece of stock while the manufacturer declares bankruptcy. The public stares on in disbelief; that was some great detergent.

That is not the American way; that's called monopolistic abuse. And it's happening every day, in every local economy, and the juggernaut that's spearheading it has a smiley face and slashes prices all over the place.

So put on a happy face, and help destroy the American economy. You're hitting: local merchants, regional merchants, distributors, manufacturers, and eventually even yourself.

Yes: find the best price; yes: get the better product; yes: try to show some semblance of consideration for your personal environment while you shop.

On a happy note, Netflix just notified me that I'll be watching "Army of Darkness" on Saturday night! Woohoo! Watch me stick my economic spear in Blockbuster's side!

 

And can I assume you're writing that response using Microsoft Windows? I don't exactly see the masses rising up to boycott MS.

Or how about Dell computer? Bare-bones pricing to gain marketshare, competitors destroyed and tossed aside as burned out carcasses. But I don't see any "boycott Dell!" war cries.

I have a hard time considering Wal-Mart a monopoly. And I've had a hard time understanding the outrage they face. Are they a dominant force? Sure. But they certainly don't have a stranglehold on the consumer retail market. Frankly, I prefer shopping at Target. And I've not really seen Wal-Mart become the "sole merchant" for any of the goods I buy.

Let's face it, the day of the mom & pop retail store is long dead (as is the mom & pop video rental store and the mom & pop hardware store). Progress is not always entirely appetizing.

If one wanted to boycott each and every business that one finds contrary to his/her personal philosophy, then more power to him/her. That boycott list is going to get awfully long awfully quick.

 

I bought my jacket from Moss here:

http://www.mossmini.com/Shop/ViewPro...eIndexID=33866

I paid $150.00 for it and I love it. I bought a large size first and it was too big so I gave it to a friend and bought me a med.

I hope if they quit making them they let me know so I can buy another one before they are gone.

I like it and did not question the price.

Earl

 

FYI Wal-Mart creates issues ("squeezes") folks in the Distribution channel too - require RFID? come ON. There's often a middle way, you can sometimes be "easy to do business with" and yet, using your leverage wisely, can save a few bucks too... Corporate Wisdom provided free of charge lol...

Was it George Carlin, said "it's about what you'll do FOR a dollar, and what you'll do WITH a dollar" or words to that effect?

 

Ya know, Laguna, a few years ago I could have fired off an indignant reply about the evil tyranny of Microsoft and how much I hate them, because in those days I was a Macintosh technician. But I realized the validity of portions of your argument: no matter how hard I tried to avoid MS, people kept asking me to integrate their networks and telling me how much more money there was to be made.

So I made the jump. I followed the money (just in time, too: I got into a well-paying job right as the market collapsed).

I still don't like Microsoft; I think the Justice Department was probably too lenient on them. Ma Bell got the smack-down, deBeers (sp?) got the smack-down, others have similarly faced double-barrel justice over monopoly abuse, and rightly so.

So your argument got me to thinking: am I betraying my core values in supporting Microsoft systems? Well, maybe, but what are the options? Linux may or may not have been developed illegally, so that moral quandary is much more difficult than supporting Microsoft. The Mac OS, along with probably every other one, is not developed solely by US engineers, so I'm supporting foreign economies no matter which route I go. And then there's my general satisfaction, which cannot be met by supporting Macs. Mac owners, in my experience, were much quicker to jump down my throat over repairs than PC owners. And Apple-only networks were much more temperamental than Windows networks.

Effectively, there's no way for me to do my job without supporting some company that's either run by a madman, operating as a monopoly, developing with foreign workers, or operating in legal "gray-area" with respect to copyrights. But we don't use Dell. Dell tried to squeeze in here a couple of years ago, but everyone here remembered horror stories of Dell equipment failures, and we told them to shove it.

It's a tough maze of morality to navigate out there, and each man must choose his own battles.

I'm off to check out that Moss jacket.

 

I've gotten embroidered patches and sewn them on jackets of my own choosing in the past but one cannot even find MINI related patches, other than the wings.

 

WalMart and other large retailers are the dinosaurs of the present age. The economy is changing and soon WalMart will be as obsolete as they have made the Mom & Pop stores. If all I am looking for is a low price; I don't need or want someone to explain the product to me; why go to WalMart or anywhere else? I will sit down and order my merchandise from my computer, often directly from the manufacturer. In fact I foresee a resurgence of Mom & Pop stores for certain items. If customer service is important, I will go to a small store with knowledgeable sales people, for everything else I will buy over the internet. I predict that there will be a great number of WalMart type stores out-of-business in the next 10 years. We already see the trend starting. Montgomery Ward is gone. K-Mart is struggling to avoid bankruptcy. Sears is trying to re-invent itself as a fashion center (the markup in clothes is much greater than in tools or appliances). The handwriting is on the wall and WalMart's days as the monolithic economic force that it has been are numbered.

 

Interesting thread. The key words are "global economy". Like it or not, it's here. And what it means is that some win, and some lose. Guess who has the most to lose? Yup, we do. The good 'ol US. It will be dificult to bring the rest of the world up to, or close to our standards without the US having to take a step back. But that's the challange in the long run. It's life in the business world today. Deal with it.

ripley

 

Good points, all of these. I see both sides, I understand that many people buy on price alone with no thought of the ramifications of their purchase. I think we all need to find a balance that works for us - I tend to support small local businesses (my wife does small business lending, so keeping small businesses in business is good business for us) but I also shop the big stores for bargains on name brand items. Some of us can afford to buy our necessities at a small to medium markup to help smaller businesses, whereas others have to watch every penny to get what they want.

BUT. . .

Am I the only one who sees the irony in the fact that, A) Most, or all of us, have MINIs (some more than one!) and by definition have purchased a car from a foreign manufacturer which is also more car than we need, really - we bought it because we appreciate the fun, the good design, and the quality feel that we can't get from a domestic product at anywhere near this price, and B) this entire discussion was precipitated by someone trying to save $$ on a MINI jacket, which is basically fluff, not a necessity. . .hell, the people who make those cheap jackets in a third-world country could eat for a month or two on what we pay for even a cheap jacket.

Bottom line is that there is a huge disparity in the standards of living around the planet, and everyone's priorities are vastly different - worldwide and right here in the good ole U.S. of A. We're just lucky as hell to be living here and not in some sweaty, dirty, poverty-stricken land. They do what they need to do to survive, we do what we need to do to thrive. I daresay that if any of us were to trade places with anyone in a third-world nation, we wouldn't make it. . .we're a spoiled nation and we love it. For good or bad, that's how things work. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to work in my nice office, then go home to my 4,800 sq foot house on my Japanese motorcycle, then motor out to dinner in either my MINI or one of my other late model cars and/or trucks. Afterwards, I'll sit in my nice home theater, watch my built-in 65" TV with full 5.1 surround and have a nice, cold beer. And not once will I think about the huddled masses going to sleep on a dirt floor, tired and hungry after an 18 hour day of sweatshop labor making cheap MINI jackets for us to enjoy. Cynical? Yes. Selfish? You bet. But that's the way it is.

Sorry - I'm off my soapbox now. I'm not critizing or bashing, just kind of saying that that's how things are in the world, and that's the way they've been for thousands of years, and that's how they'll be thousands of years from now.

Have a great weekend - and happy motoring!

BP

 

Sponsors gving permission = 1
Volunteers to help coordinate=7 (will contact you all over the weekend)
Price update= closer to $100 than the aforementioned $145
618 views of this thread.

 

Cool...

 

With permission granted from these 2 sponsors:

North American Motoring
c3

and my confidence that others will soon follow I'm very encouraged that we can make this a reality.
Below are some examples of the kind of jackets I'm thinking of. For pricing purposes all jackets will have to be the same and are available in Adult and childrens sizes. I'm checking on the women's version. I'm also checking on pricing should we want to offer other jacket color choices.

This is the Rally style jacket.


The Racing Jacket.


The Motorcycle style jacket.

 

Very Very Nice - and excellent that you might be able to pull this off!

Red with Black looks nice - goes well with GBMINI#3

 

Nice looking jackets, two things will convice me to pay more money for a U.S. based product: International Company Logos: MINI (obviously), Castrol(?) and other firms associated with MINI racing past and present, and alternative jacket colors, something close to the color or my car- I don't have a red one.

 

No argument there and I'm waiting on responses from just such companies. But this is not necessarilly a buy American project. The cost to manufacture a jacket solely in the USA would carry a much higher price tag.

This is a project to produce a legal/licensed/sanctioned product to add that sought after 'genuine' characteristic to this item. Should we succeed, anything else will be a fake which is what is being offered on eBay now.

 

I do understand that it's not manufactured in the U.S. (what is anymore other than military equipment) but it has U.S. involvement: you.

 

if you could get some of the sponsors on the fake jacket (sparco, JCW or JC challenge, Castrol and others), (probably a PC faux pau there ) that would be awesome. I would definitely buy a racing and quite possibly a rally style jacket and would retire my fake one. Way to go DVL, you deserve alot of credit for this idea. Lets make this happen and make it worth the effort being put forth by these guys and gals!

 

Absolutely interested!! Heck, I think it would be cool even if you just had some of our more beloved tuner shops' logos all over the jacket (Webb, DT, SPI, etc....).

 

I'm starting a new thread called MINI Motoring Jacket Development.

Please follow us over there. https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...283#post519283

Let's leave the global economy and other consternations here and let just the enthusiasm for this project bloom in it's own garden.


See you there.

Jeff