The Ten Percent Solution

We've sent this out in an email, and we started handing it out in the store on Saturday. After mulling it over for a couple of days, the stock market responded today with its biggest one day rise ever. Who know we had so much power?

Now is the time for all good men, women, children, dogs and cats to come to the aid of their local economy!

These are the times that try men's (women's, children's etc) souls. And pocketbooks.

But we say it is a time for change! Change--that will create 800 new jobs in Durham! Change--that will add more than $20 million a year in wages and contribute more than $60 million a year in total, positive economic impact for Durham County! Change--that will improve our whole community!

No, we're not mixing up business and fantasy, like those folks up on Wall Street have been doing. We're talking about a simple plan for a better local economy. We call it:

The Ten Percent Solution
If there was just a 10% shift from shopping at chain and on-line stores to shopping at locally owned, independent businesses, Durham would get those 800 new jobs and tens of millions of dollars in increased economic activity.*

Why?

Because a lot more of the money you spend at a locally owned business stays (and re-circulates) in the local community. Take The Regulator for example. All of our employees live here. Our back office is in the back of the store, not in New York or New Delhi. We buy almost all of our supplies locally. Most of the taxes we pay stay in Durham and North Carolina. We bank locally. And we don't send dividend checks or inflated CEO salaries off to another state, where they're likely to end up invested in risky "new financial instruments" (a.k.a. play money).

Now, more than ever, where you shop makes a difference. Strike a blow for independence! Support locally owned, independent businesses! You'll be supporting our local economy as well as our local culture and our whole sense of community.

Remember the Ten Percent Solution:
Keep Your Dough in Durham!
a not so modest proposal from The Regulator Bookshop

*(The figures quoted here come from a study done earlier this year for the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan by an economic consultant called Civic Economics. The results of that study have been adjusted to reflect Durham's lower population and average income. See http://news.bookweb.org/news/6306.html for more).