Letters

Kevin Menard said he would like to solicit help from a business school to undertake a study of business conditions [“Sag Harbor Businesses Say They See More Visitors, but Fewer Customers,” 27east.com, February 5]. May I suggest a simple way to evaluate the problem? Buy a Jenga game. The tower of blocks where play is simply pulling one block out, turn by turn, until one is pulled out and the entire tower collapses. Label the bottom four blocks “poverty.” Label the top four blocks the “20 percent.” Everything else is the middle class.

Need I make further explanation? The tower is falling. Go online to Google or YouTube or whatever. There are numerous pieces by economic experts who point out the simple reality: The small group of people with so much money they have to find ways to spend it cannot keep our consumer-based economy afloat.

The prices in Sag Harbor are certainly set for the upper echelons of our society. The people who actually need anything are lucky to be able to feed themselves. Local tourists come mostly to gawk at the other side.

Wealthy foreign investment and foreign tourists have been a quiet part of the economy out here for decades. (Walking down Jobs Lane was like being in the Tower of Babel.) As the current administration takes an ax to foreign relations, one suspects this may decline. There are only a few tools that a business can use: lower prices, less help (which contradicts the uplift of personal service), more unique products (which, of course, makes lower prices unlikely), less inventory … oops, that means higher prices.

Maybe AI can save us. The most probable outcome is constant churn in businesses and a continuing decline in their numbers. (There were empty stores on Jobs Lane all last season.)

The old axiom applies: Hope for the best, plan for the worst. A corollary for Mr. Menard: No more studies are needed.

Amy Paradise

Hampton Bays