We used to have independent markets. Big ones ran them out of business. When I was a kid there were corner grocery stores in neighborhoods if you didn't want to walk a few blocks to main street where there were larger markets. Hardware stores, bait and tackle shops, places where you could by yarn and thread, vacuum repair shops. There were fish markets, individual coffee shops, drug stores where you could sit down and order a BLT and coke. Maybe you mowed the shop owners lawn or washed his windows in the the store, or went to school with his kids. Main street was mostly owned by individual proprietors. Now you can go to any town in America, it's mostly the same now. Home Depot, Walmart, McDonalds. Just a few big corporations have the market share of any thing retail. Even communications, the same. This is what I miss and this is what the Walmart model brought us. Why do you conservatives or what ever you call yourselves, think that America is being destroyed by food stamps? Never a word about offshoring of whole industries, corporate welfare, or the big monopolies that our government doesn't regulate like it used to? This isn't even to mention the cost of all war, all the time now.