Re: [Pen-l] Re: 7 Marxists on the current economic crisis

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Perelman wrote:
> 
> The grocer & his employees knew our family.  We lived in the neighborhood.  My
> parents would pay when they came to the store.  Other people would wait until they
> had ready cash.
> 
> My brother stole some candy from another store.  The owner saw what was happening,
> put it on our bill, & mentioned it to my mother.

Michael, I'm not sure what the dates of your experience aree. Mine are
1935-1944. (In some localities the depression lasted a year or two
beyond its end.) And I don't think credit then was a mtter of
neighborliness -- it was a matter of staying in business. And it was a
gamble for the store -- not everyone did or could pay off the bill at
the end of the month. As I mentioned in my previous posts, I remember my
parents paying off some grocery pre-war bills in 1946 9r 47. I think my
mother bought her gasoline on credit too. When the unpaid bill got too
large at one grocery people would start running credit at another. I
think independent grocery-oweners did the same with their wholesalers.

There were always large crowds of shoppers on Xmas Eve because many of
them had just gotten their paychecks that day.

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