"Useless electronic crap"? Josef, come on now, that is an interesting statement coming from a bike shop owner. Do you consider your merchandise useless crap? I'll bet most of your customers ride around town or on trails listening to MP3 players, or take pictures all over LA on digital cameras, and then stop off at Café de Leche and use their laptops on the Wifi or call their cycling buddies on their cell phones. Also, retail spending only brightens the future of minimum wage workers who scan goods? What kind of small business owner are you? Don't you have employees, don't they appreciate their jobs, as well as all the vendors and their employees who have jobs because of your business and others like it. What about the shipping/trucking companies that deliver the bikes to your store, or do you ride them there from the factory, in China. I bet the longshoremen down in Pedro and LBC are grateful that the people waiting at Best Buy are interested in buying all that "useless electronic crap" Which reminds me, unlike Occupy LA, Occupy Best Buy doesn't need donations, just discounts to stretch their hard earned money, because they have jobs!

I'm not trying to cajole you into any sort of retraction, I just assumed someone who owns a small business may have a greater appreciation of how the economy works, and how many people count on a vibrant economy for their own well being. I'm sure the Obama administration is praying to God that people consume as many useless goods as possible so it will hide his failure to fix the economy, and then he'll be out of a job. Soon enough I'm sure.

Also, I wondered which items are useless? Your fridge or do you have an icebox? Your washer/dryer or do you hand wash and sun dry. I'm reading your post on my computer, I'm guessing you wrote it on yours, or did you telegraph it to the patch administrator. I bet you have a laptop and ipad, stackable washer/dryer, a cell phone that shoots video and gets emails and facebook updates, a fridge with an icemaker, a dishwasher, microwave, and bigscreen tv. But hey, these are useless consumer items, you probably don't have any of these things. You take the bus and ride your bike, a bike that was made in a village in China by workers who don't even make a livable wage at the expense of American workers. We should start an Occupy Flyin Pigeon for contributing to the outsourcing of American jobs. I'll bring my tent, you supply the Chinese bikes.

You want to provoke some sort of response from me, but it seems like the argument is happening between your two ears. What is it that binds you so tightly to the mythology of "the economy"?

Best Buy, and big box retailers like it, is an awful succubus that scoops up barrels full of subsidized profits and turns them into shareholders and executive pay bonuses.

If you want to make this about me and my shop, does it help that we pay a decent wage to our colleagues, host community forums and rides, publish news and analysis, and generally act as responsible neighbors in our community?

Regarding our bikes: 99% of bikes sold in the U.S. are made in China. Our shop, though named for a famous Chinese-made bicycle brand, is mostly stocked with bikes made in the developed world by workers earning decent wages, with socialized health care, and vacations.

I don't set global trade policy, and I wasn't alive to negotiate the 20th century;s "fossil fuel fiesta" and the infinite growth ponzi scheme economy we have - but I damn sure am not going to sit by and watch the world flush itself down the toilet either.

Occupy Flying Pigeon LA any time you'd like. I muzzle my voice enough for fear of scaring away business - but this opinion piece does not deserve the howling at the moon conjecture you've dumped here. While you're here, pick up a broom and help me sweep the sidewalk - it's a damn sight more useful than bear hugging the "capitalism" you've been sold.