The High Street and the economy

A lot of news items today relate to the economy.  A Nobel laureate has decided that the Euro is no longer a good idea, which makes me wonder if the Nobel Prize for Economics is any less of a farce than the Nobel Peace Prize.  After all, giving the Economics Prize to someone who has not yet figured out that the Euro is doomed to failure makes about as much sense as awarding the Peace Prize to a vile warmonger like Barack Obama (who won it in 2009).

Another news item is the ongoing decline of the High Street, which is linked to internet shopping.  Apparently the British spend more money online than any other country in the world, which may seem surprising.  We are a densely populated country in which very few people do not live within walking distance of a shopping centre.  We might therefore expect that internet shopping would be higher in sparsely populated countries like Canada or Australia.

For me, one of the advantages of the internet is that I can buy almost anything.  Nevertheless I do not buy my groceries online, which many people do.  I do however buy most of my groceries in supermarkets, because they stock a wider range of goods than independent shops, and also tend to be cheaper.

I have said before that saving the High Street is a case of use it or lose it.  If we shop in supermarkets, then our political leaders will assume that people want supermarkets, and applications to build new supermarkets will tend to get the go ahead.

One of the main arguments in favour of large new supermarkets is that so many already exist.  If Town A has a bigger and better supermarket than Town B, then it will not be surprising if people from Town B go to Town A to do their shopping.  This in turn creates a case for opening a new supermarket in Town B so as to keep the Town B customers from travelling to Town A.  Then Town A "needs" a bigger supermarket.  Ultimately the High Streets in both towns lose out.

It would also help if we vote for political parties, and ideally join political parties, which want to save the High Street.  Perhaps the best thing that our political leaders can do to help save the High Street is to boost the economy so as to minimise the number of people who have to count their loose change when going shopping.  I for one would happily spend more money in the High Street if I had more money to spend.

Previous posts on the economy include:

Goliath comes to Margate Does the High Street have a future? The fakery of Bushmills