On Wednesday, Goody’s Family Clothing announced it will begin liquidating its stores on Friday.

Certainly, this is another sign that the national economy is reaching its nadir.

Less than six months ago, Goody’s filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and closed some of its stores, including one at The Selma Mall.

When the store at the mall closed, many people blamed Selma, its people, its location and various other items. We said it wasn’t so then, and we’ll repeat: Selma and its people had nothing to do with Goody’s closing. Now it’s evident the national economy played its hand. The closing was out of our control here in Selma.

We’re so bad about not supporting our retailers here and coming up with excuses for not helping the workers at those businesses maintain viable jobs that spread dollars around to the grocery stores and other retail businesses in Selma and Dallas County.

Our future as a city depends on our support of our businesses. And in hard economic times like these, shopping at home makes a big difference.