When the owner of a company is so far removed from the situation they don't have to deal with the low pay of their employees. We use to have Mom and Pop type stores where the owners worked right in the store with their employees. This type of situation makes it harder to ignore poverty. You see what your employee is eating for lunch and you know you need to pay him more.

The problem is now these Mom and Pop stores can't compete with national chains. National Chains pay cheap wages and this allows them to have cheap prices and that is where everyone shops. Are we willing to pay more at the store so that the employees will make more? Now these companies are moving overseas to get even cheaper labor. But we still shop for the best deal, not American made.

I remember life before Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and believe it or not, even shopping malls. Everyone shopped "downtown." Life was better then!

This really shows how old I am, but I can remember getting dressed up to go shopping downtown. The customer service was great! MOst stores don't seem to care if you shop there or not.

Erica, we must be the same age b/c I have the same memories! Going to "town" on Saturdays was a BIG event in my house too. We would get all dressed up and go 'shopping' - usually to Morganton Hardware or one of the other downtown Morganton stores. We seldom if ever actually bought anything, but you're right, it didn't seem to matter to the stores. HA! I'd like to see a family try to go into a store today and hang-out. I don't think that would go over too well.