What I think is even sadder is that even if a local small business makes a good, honest product and values consumers and employees and even if it miraculously doesn’t get decimated by cheap>quality and becomes successful. It will still get destroyed because private equity or another large soulless corporation will swoop in and make an offer the owner can’t refuse which then starts the the good business down the road of being sucked dry by the corporate vampires.

I do my best to go out of my way to patronize small businesses first, but too many times I’ve seen this happen. Every time it’s so depressing. What’s more depressing is that it really doesn’t need to be this way, and yet we continue as is.