My overview of all of this is similar to how someday in the future there will be one newspaper called

The Times-Post-News-Leader-Journal-Herald-Tribune

Except that in our context it will be Sam Ash's-Musician Friendly-Sweet-Guitar Center.

This is an Indiana Jones boulder that has started rolling and won't stop. Walmart and Amazon have already eaten Sears and K-Mart. Target won't be far behind. Menards will at some point eat Home Depot, Meier grocery store is expanding quick and will at some point eat the regional stores. Here it's Giant Eagle. Other places have Krogers. In the south (Billy?) is it HEB? I don't know if Piggly Wiggly is gone yet. Out west it used to be Ralphs. They'll be gone. Walmart with the pickup services is eating into those regionals already. Think about how many people followed Walmart's Covid-driven curbside pickup business model. Suddenly you can buy everything with curbside pickup. Fast food, dog food, grocery stores... here even with the restrictions eased back somewhat they continue to offer curbside pickup and I don't see them ending it if it looks like keeping it will retain even as little as .05% business share. This is more than ever an "anything to hold a buck" era, and that includes kneecapping the competition. As mom and pop die, son and daughter won't keep the business when they get an offer from a corporate entity that they can't refuse. Right near me is a GREAT little tailor shop run by a really cool biker woman who is now in her mid 50s. She has that shop because her late mother had it before her. I guarantee you that when she retires that shop will close because people are not really interested in learning that skill on the level of a production perspective. At some point there just won't be local shops to do that kind of work, and we'll end up having to go to clothing stores and paying 3 times the cost to get pants shortened an inch.

I hate sounding like my father, but the future is right there to see. Our kids are okay, but their kids and their kids have no idea what an awful corporate greed driven world they will live in. But as to Sweetwater specifically, I don't see any kind of doom and gloom until we are all dead.

Last edited by eddie1261; 09/07/21 02:36 PM.
I am using the new 1040XTRAEZ form this year. It has just 2 lines.

1. How much did you make in 2023?
2. Send it to us.