We want to inspire you. We want to say don’t panic. But after talking to local business owners over the past few weeks, it seems pretty clear that Seacoast businesses are hurting in a way that’s going to hurt all of us.

While Wal-Mart is predicting a boom year in 2009, the businesses that actually ensure a diverse supply of goods and services to our community are openly comparing notes as to who will be closing up in the next month or two.
We’re talking about people who have pulled out personal credit cards to cover the cost of holiday inventory, in one last-ditch effort to come out of 2008 alive.

Two big December storms in the midst of a very troubled economy have stalled our local economic engine, and hope is not enough to get these businesses through until the summer season.

In this difficult economy, in which you may have less to spend than you did last year, it’s even more important to consider how you spend. In a sense, every dollar is a vote—a tiny, you-powered referendum on what sort of system you endorse and what sort of world you want to live in.

When facing the worst recession that we’ve seen in many decades, we should consider carefully how we react to it. Do we panic with an every-person-for-themselves attitude and run to Wal-Mart to buy substandard goods for a perceived short-term savings, in turn sending our money away to a distant corporate headquarters and endorsing their global hegemony of homogeneity?

Or, when faced with difficult decisions about how to best conserve our personal resources, do we look to the businesses run by our friends and neighbors, the same people who we see on the street, whose kids go to the same schools our kids go to, whose lives and businesses are interconnected with our own in a complicated web which is our community, and decide to invest in that and support each other?

That Big Mac sure does taste good sometimes, but then again, it has never tasted as good as real food, made at a real restaurant, out of ingredients grown in New England, and furthermore, did you ever wonder why that hideous clown has to paint on his smile every morning?

Buying local is not an act of charity—it’s a starting point. One of Seacoast Local’s initiatives in 2009 is the 10% Shift. If Portsmouth households alone shifted just 10% of disposable income to local businesses in 2009, it would multiply into a $6 million impact on our local economy. Change is achievable, and the effects are worthwhile.

So where do you buy your next hamburger? Gallon of paint? Birthday cards? Milk? Light bulbs? Buy local like your town depends on it. Because it does, and it always has. —Wire staff and friends

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