What we boycott in our family.

What do we boycott in the Hadley-Ives family? There are a few thing we try not to buy, and then there are companies we try to avoid. When I was a kid in middle school I already boycotted certain products, partly for political reasons. I remember certain brands of shoes being popular, but I wouldn’t let my parents buy them for me or wear them because I thought they were made in non-democratic countries where the workers weren’t free. I still make some political decisions when I’m behaving as a consumer. I’ll share those now.

One of the companies I boycott is Exxon-Mobil. I won’t buy gas at one of their stations, and I won’t go to any of the companies that are owned by ExxonMobil. This boycott is mainly motivated by ExxonMobil’s funding for politically-motivated attacks on science around climate change. I believe they have even hired people to attack critics and journalists who have tried to expose how ExxonMobil fought the idea that fossil fuels were contributing to climate change and global warming. I attribute much of the delay in the American political will to make meaningful changes to avoid or diminish global warming to the campaign of ExxonMobil. That’s why I never stop at their gas stations.

Royal Dutch Shell is another company I cannot abide. I hold them partly responsible for the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, an author and businessman who complained about conditions in the oil producing area of the Niger Delta. He believed that not enough of the profits from the oil extraction was getting back to help raise the living standards of the people who lived in the areas where drilling was taking place. He launched a non-violent movement for economic and social development and justice. When the Nigerian government arrested him and decided to kill him I believe Shell could have applied pressure to stop his execution. It also wouldn’t surprise me if Shell was in fact giving indications to the Nigerian government that the Shell corporation wanted Saro-Wiwa silenced. So, I never buy gas at Shell stations, nor do I buy any Shell products.

I don’t shop at the Family Dollar general stores. I find the sweat-shop retail discount chains like this depressing. Walmart and Sam’s Clubs are other stores I scrupulously avoid unless there is an emergency and no alternative. These are part of the trend of corporations delivering shoddy, cheap goods made by workers from unfree countries where workers get killed if they try to organize and environmental and job safety protections are minimal. This provides lower prices, but it also means lower wages for low-skilled American workers and workers in other nations where decent labor laws and political freedoms keep production costs slightly higher. Not only this, but these companies have a tendency to treat employees unfairly (unpaid overtime, stealing time from employees, etc.), which is exacerbated by the way the companies set the goal of maximizing profits so far ahead of the other goals that for-profit firms should have. Finally, these sorts of companies tend to indoctrinate workers to be against unions, and they make contributions to the persons whose political views differ most distinctly from mine, so I have that motive for boycotting or at least avoiding them as much as possible.

I don’t shop at Lowe’s Home Centers. Back in early 2003 before America invaded Iraq many peace demonstrators in Champaign County, Illinois were demonstrating against the possible upcoming war in Iraq. Some of them parked vehicles in distant corners of a local Lowe’s Home Centers parking lot, far from the store, and not in any way taking parking spots from potential customers. The owners or managers of that Lowe’s store had peace demonstrators’ cars towed away, and so I will never shop at Lowe’s.

I almost never buy meat when I shop for groceries. I don’t like the industrial food production system we have in the United States. I think it dehumanizes us because it creates a bad relationship between people and the animals they eat. I will sometimes buy meat at farmers markets when I’m buying directly from a farmer who can tell me about how his animals lived and were slaughtered. I probably eat animal flesh four or five times per month, about once a week, but this is mainly because Jeri often buys or prepares food with meat in it. If I was doing more of the cooking and grocery shopping we would almost never have meat.

It’s not so much a boycott, but I really almost never watch anything on television or listen to anything on radio if commercials will interrupt what I’m watching or hearing. I find commercials ridiculous and intrusive. When I see an advertisement that I find exceptionally insulting, I try to make a note to myself to avoid buying whatever the advertisers are flogging.

I would not buy any Amway products. Amway supports some of the most reactionary political agendas, and I want none of my money going to support the people at the top of the Amway marketing pyramid.

I tend to make a point of never buying anything from companies that send me too many e-mail advertisements, and I certainly boycott all spammers. I also don’t buy things from companies that use annoying pop-up window advertisements on the Internet.

That’s about it for what we boycott.

A model for pricing Sienna LE 8-passenger minivans

I've spent the better part of two days meeting dealers and private sellers to look at Toyota Sienna LE 8-passenger minivans. As a social scientist and social worker, I'm interested in the variables that go into determining the cost of a car or a used car. I think I have a formula for how to price these cars. Here it is. All figures are in 2009 dollars, so if you find this blog entry in 2010 or later you'll need to adjust using a consumer price index adjustment.

For each year past the current year, deduct $360 from the "new price," which is $23,642. You can think of this as $1 per day in depreciation, as a proxy for wear and tear on the car. If the car is in better shape than you would expect, add a few hundred, or subtract a few hundred if it's in worse condition than you would expect, given its age. For every mile the minivan has been driven deduct 15.272 cents. That's it. The price this yields should be within a couple hundred dollars of your final price. If you're a buyer, don't settle for any price more than a few hundred over this predicted price, unless there is some extra special thing that has been added to the basic configuration of the van. If you can get $100 or $200 under this price you have a great deal. If you're a seller, don't sell for significantly under the model's predicted price.

My "new price" of $23,642 is about $200 under the lowest "new price" (dealer's invoice) I could find for any basic new 2009 Toyota Sienna LE with one power door and the radio/CD system. Typically a dealer can go under the official dealer's invoice by a small amount if they are eager to make a sale, because there are several hundred dollars the dealer has to use as incentives. Also, the dealer can make money on the sale if you finance, so the car can actually be sold to you within a couple hundred of the dealer's cost if the dealer can then make 4% or 5% interest off a loan to you for the better part of the price of the car. Were I a dealer, I would offer my cars to customers at a few hundred dollars over my actual final cost and then finance the buyers with rates about a quarter percent under the lowest reasonable home equity loan rate a buyer might be able to secure (to prevent buyers from getting home equity loans to pay off their car loan debts to me before I have collected all that 4% or 5% interest on their $20,000+ loans).

Various options on the Sienna LE can add $50 to $400 or $800 to the value of a new car, and if you're looking at a car with those extras you just add those numbers to the "new car" price. The only options I was including were one power door, the am/fm radio and cd player, and the 8 passenger configuration.

Incidentally, I should add here that we did significant research on various cars that could carry 6 or more people, and our second choice was a Mazda-V (Mazda 5). In fact, I would have purchased a new Mazda-V except that it wasn't quite big enough and our children felt they didn't have enough leg room in the back. The Mazda-V is more environmentally friendly than the Toyota Sienna, so it's rather a pity that we decided against it. I looked at some older Honda Odysseys and decided against that one. I also don't trust our local Honda dealership in Springfield. We looked at the Kia Sedona and Dodge Grand Caravan as well. Using some formulas to account for discounts or price rises related to quality, we still came down to a choice between the Mazda-V and Toyota Sienna. Keep in mind, I'm a buyer with almost no interest in how a car looks. My main concerns are reliability, safety, fuel efficiency, durability, and comfort.