Free Wealth & Poverty Essay Example

When faced with the prospect of improving my town’s economy by allowing a Target store on Telegraph Ave. by sacrificing its local autonomy and displacing a number of businesses and people, I am faced with an incredibly difficult choice. If the Target plan is implemented, 100 minimum wage jobs will be given to Berkeley, and city revenue will be increased. However, if I choose to reject it, I will provide a short-term reprieve to local businesses but help the city’s coffers run dry. As much as I would like to ensure that the city maintains its unique small-town flavor, my priority has to be to the economic prosperity of Berkeley, in which I must act as mayor; to that end, I choose to accept the Target bid and permit local businesses to continue to operate on Telegraph Avenue.
This decision comes with a number of advantages and disadvantages. By accepting the Target store, I can improve the overall economic prospects of Berkeley, which will ensure that the town’s city revenue and economic stability is maintained. I also help to earn the trust of my constituents by fulfilling the campaign promises I made to get elected, which will be able to be achieved through the city revenue achieved through these big-box stores. However, this also comes with a huge price tag: those small businesses will close, and my overall approval rating may falter as the town is perceived to make a deal with Big Business. At the same time, this revenue will allow the city to perform needed public services, and fulfill certain campaign promises I made to donors and voters to invest in capital projects within Berkeley.
Making this decision was dependent on a lot of factors, including the anticipated outcomes of Berkeley’s 20-year future as a city. Option 1 would provide long-term economic viability to Telegraph Avenue, and provide a greater number of jobs to the citizens of Berkeley. While the small businesses would suffer and go out of business immediately, it is difficult to see them surviving in 20 years the way a large corporation like Target would, due to its infrastructure and the increased revenue that it would provide. While the employees would suffer for a time, they could certainly find work within the new Target location, and I would rather have an overall increase in working citizens than only have a few workers making a middle-class wage for a limited amount of time. Big businesses bring in a lot of city revenue, and there is a reason they have been so successful (with their CEOs amassing incredibly amounts of money in executive compensation ) (Surowiecki, 2013). To accept Option 1 would be a good decision for many people seeking that kind of big business money, and would make CEOs and the investors of those companies very happy.
However, with the choice of Option 1, the city would be able to take advantage of the monopolization of Target and benefit from the substantial revenue that would come in as a result (Lecture 3). While Berkeley may suffer a lessened sense of originality and novelty, the most important thing is to make sure the city’s budget is in check and that projects can be completed. Though the specific business owners and workers of these local business would suffer, the town as a whole would be able to benefit from Target’s substantial investment in their Telegraph Avenue location. Given the deregulated, oligopoly-centric environment that big-box stores like Target deal in, this will offer a net benefit to the city by providing cheap goods in high quantities, which will offset the potential decrease in average income that would come from replacing much of the city’s workforce with minimum-wage Target employees (Lecture 5).
As the mayor of Berkeley, I would likely choose to do what I could to maintain the economic stability of the city overall, and give my town the best shot at true success, even if that means sacrificing the small-town appeal of Berkeley. While the Target option is hardly ideal, it is the best chance for maintaining city funds, and keeping the economy of the city afloat and secure for years to come. The more city revenue flows into Berkeley, the more public services can be provided to it; the resources and capital that a large company like Target can provide is simply too good to pass up.

Works Cited

Casselman, Ben. “The American Middle Class Hasn’t Gotten a Raise in 15 Years.”
FiveThirtyEight, Sep 22, 2014.
Hacker, Jacob S. “The New Economic Prosperity.” In The Great Risk Shift. Oxford University
Press.
Lazonick, William. “Profits Without Prosperity.” Harvard Business Review, September 2014.
“Of Geeks and Shrinks.” From The Future of Success.
Surowiecki, James. “Open Season.” The New Yorker, October 21, 2013.
Tavernise, Sabrina. “Middle-Class Areas Shrink as Income Gap Grows, New Report Finds.” The
New York Times, November 15, 2011.