Keaau Farmers Market reported to be closing

[Punatang]

where rent is cheap or free and family works for free - tc

There is nothing new under the sun. Your speculation seems dead on to me. It all hearkens back to an earlier time and an older world when/where families live in apartments over their family businesses and shops. The model has stood the test of time. The market demands it.  Where there is a will, there is a way.  It's kinda fun right?

[TomK]

...I wonder why the John Doe person or company would do that?

It must be TomK or Joe Biden. Elepaio will clarify shortly. 

Well, as I'm sure you all know, I chat with presidents all the time despite not being an American. I can't tell you all the laughs I had with Clinton and the Bush brothers and I even tutored Obama in some astronomy stuff. Unfortunately, due to the high-powered people I met, I was forced to meet Prince Andrew. And this last bit is true. I wanted to avoid meeting the guy but I couldn't. I ended up talking to this obnoxious dickhead about brown dwarfs and missing matter. This was before more recent discoveries.

I still feel I need to take a shower every time I think of that visit.

[randomq]

We should all start growing our own "victory gardens" and making relationships with our fellow neighborhood farmers for the times to come. Stagflation, world war, massive migration due to climate change and hunger... We'll wish for the days of the $8 burrito.

[terracore]

where rent is cheap or free and family works for free - tc

There is nothing new under the sun. Your speculation seems dead on to me. It all hearkens back to an earlier time and an older world when/where families live in apartments over their family businesses and shops. The model has stood the test of time. The market demands it.  Where there is a will, there is a way.  It's kinda fun right?

It reminds me of watching old movies or TV programs where people frequently lived at their parent's home or in boarding houses until they got married and everybody had a personal relationship with the merchants they frequented.  "Credit" wasn't as it is recognized today (a commodity), it was established through personal relationships and a handshake was worth something because credit scores would have been considered some horrible dystopian communist future.

Basically, we the people don't have an economy, it was destroyed and replaced by the government and corporate special interests that control it.  A person's debt is a corporation's asset, and these debt assets have replaced tangible assets in the economy.   Most people make their debt payments by laboring for a wage.  When a corporation owns one's debt, they have staked a claim on one's labor.  We used to have a word to describe when the value of one's labor was owned by someone else, but it's no longer politically correct to use it in the New and Improved version, because the corporations that decide what is politically correct said so.  

I think you're right that things come full circle, and people are waking up to what's happened and are finding ways out of it.  This is why CBDCs are being proposed as the next best thing, and they will probably find a way to make people embrace it.

In the mean time, I frequent as many of these small family businesses as possible, and I pay cash.  I don't have an option to exit the system we're living under without leaving the country, but we can all choose to limit our participation as much as possible.

[Obie]

"It reminds me of watching old movies or TV programs where people frequently lived at their parent's home or in boarding houses until they got married and everybody had a personal relationship with the merchants they frequented. "Credit" wasn't as it is recognized today (a commodity), it was established through personal relationships and a handshake was worth something because credit scores would have been considered some horrible dystopian communist future."

Lived this in real life.
When my Grandmother died in 1965 she was running the family plumbing business.
I was 18 and had just graduated from high school. I was working as a 3rd year apprentice plumber at a huge power plant under construction.
I quit my job and took over running the shop. My 1st job I was assigned to was to try to collect on some of the delinquent accounts.
Most of them started playing according to their original payment plan. Sometimes it was $4.00 or $5.00 per week.

The building was a 2 story brick building. The plumbing shop was on one side and my Uncle's Jewelry shop was on the other.
My Uncle and his family lived upstairs and the other side was a rental apartment. The view out the back windows was a steel mill.

Google Mingo Junction Ohio. The movie " The Deer Hunter " was filmed there.

[HiloJulie]

"In the mean time, I frequent as many of these small family businesses as possible, and I pay cash."

As do I. 

I will say that I have found the Farmers Market in Keaau to be, yes, slightly higher in pricing, but hands down in most cases - a minimum quality factor of plus 50% on their fruits and veggies over most of the other Farmers Market venues.

Well worth it for me to drive past the HPP ones and go to Keaau just to get their goods.

"Starting wage at Taco Bell in Hilo is $14.25 now, which is above minimum wage.  Also they don't have any lines at their drive-through lane anymore and an ingredient-lean fast-food burrito is almost $8.00 with no sides and no drink.  Not sure why their tacos are so much cheaper... maybe because don't have to pay someone to roll it up?"

A much cheaper and better alternative is to buy a jar of Metamucil, stir it into some water and drink. Same end result, much cheaper and you can do it in the comfort of your own home!