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Iron Crowned posted:Bar Louie is a stupid name It sounds like an establishment in Shenmue.
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Jan 28, 2020 18:02
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Krispy Wafer posted:They have 300 locations over probably a dozen states, I don't think over expansion is a reason. They've been doing a lot of menu tinkering over the last few years which is never a good sign, especially when it's not adding some 'healthier' options.
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Jan 28, 2020 19:51
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Does anyone have a link to that great article about Sears descent into randian madness? There's one really good one people always post and I can't find it. edit: I think it was the bloomberg article, but I can't tell because I'm not buying a sub just to read this one article about stupid randians. If that is the one I'm thinking of does anyone have a link to a post where someone quoted the whole stupid thing Guildenstern Mother has a new favorite as of 06:23 on Jan 29, 2020 |
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Jan 29, 2020 05:35
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So that explains why one of our two Bar Louies up and closed with no warning. I suspect the remaining one might make it as it's on the end of a well trafficked mall unless the whole chain goes down. Though I have always heard that it's an expensive as hell restaurant and since I don't drink much there's never been a reason for me to go to one.
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Jan 29, 2020 05:46
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Guildenstern Mother posted:Does anyone have a link to that great article about Sears descent into randian madness? There's one really good one people always post and I can't find it. Groovelord Neato posted:I ended up subscribing to Bloomberg so I could get access to that lengthy article about Lampert and Sears from 2013 (wish I had copied it before it went behind the paywall). Groovelord was kind enough to take the bullet and copy it elsewhere for everyone.
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Jan 29, 2020 08:14
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Awesome thanks for digging that up, and thanks to groovelord
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Jan 29, 2020 08:24
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I can only assume that the randian experiment that was Sears is taught in freshwater economics as an example of how not to run a business
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Jan 29, 2020 09:18
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Sears is pretty successful if your name is Ed Lambert, though.
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Jan 29, 2020 09:46
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Isn't the general consensus that he's pumped in so much money to keep it afloat that at this point he wouldn't break even if they razed it to the ground tomorrow and sold off the real estate?
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Jan 29, 2020 14:47
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Possibly, I know there is also an ongoing lawsuit against him by some of Sears’ other creditors
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Jan 29, 2020 15:42
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I think people lump Lampert in with the corporate raiders that destroyed Remington Outdoor, Toys R Us, etc via leveraged buyouts when that's not what seems to have happened. Those were companies that would've survived if not for the insane interests payments they were saddled with. His hedge fund has lost at least a billion dollars on the Sears fiasco (and it's probably much more at this point) and if you read the Bloomberg article I copy/pasted he appears to think he's some wizard that could turn the company around but is actually delusional. Sears would've died awhile ago if he wanted to do to it what was done to say Toys R Us.
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Jan 29, 2020 16:19
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BigDave posted:Was that the one in Minnetonka? They still haven't put anything new in it's spot. Colorado.
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Jan 29, 2020 16:24
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His Kmart turnaround made Lambert a star. He then Peter principled himself with Sears. He probably has lost money on the deal and he’s certainly still bleeding cash, but what else can he do? Either he pulls a Hail Mary with Sears or he’s always branded a loser.
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Jan 29, 2020 17:11
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Krispy Wafer posted:His Kmart turnaround made Lambert a star. He then Peter principled himself with Sears. He probably has lost money on the deal and he’s certainly still bleeding cash, but what else can he do? Either he pulls a Hail Mary with Sears or he’s always branded a loser. Yeah well Broadway Joe he ain't. Sears is a dead portfolio walking, just a matter of time before it keels over.
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Jan 29, 2020 18:01
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https://twitter.com/MarketWatch/status/1222539201553600512
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Jan 29, 2020 19:24
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IT IS DONE.
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Jan 29, 2020 19:37
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I used to use Moviepass all the time, it was basically just stealing from venture capitalists so I could have free entertainment. RIP to a real one.
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Jan 29, 2020 20:15
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So Movie Pass killed itself as well as the company that was stupid enough to buy it. BigDave posted:Yeah well Broadway Joe he ain't. Somewhere I saw a statistic for how much money Sears loses in a month and it wasn’t that bad. This was just operating margins and didn’t include debt and stuff. I haven’t been able to find the citation since then so maybe it’s just a fever dream, but if true then Sears could potentially cut and slash itself to profitably. But then what? They’re not going to add more customers. JC Penney offers better everything than Sears and even they’re dying. Lambert might be able to add another 5 to 10 years to the Sears timeline but the business model is the problem. Well, that and management.
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Jan 29, 2020 20:29
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Krispy Wafer posted:His Kmart turnaround made Lambert a star. He then Peter principled himself with Sears. He probably has lost money on the deal and he’s certainly still bleeding cash, but what else can he do? Either he pulls a Hail Mary with Sears or he’s always branded a loser. He's done at this point, his mistakes are so huge its like he doesn't even understand commerce. He's also destroying his hedge fund to keep Sears afloat and wont stop, even to risk 4.6 billion of it on an emergency investment to save Sears from liquidation. He's setting everything he has on fire to keep this going probably because he's a true believer and can't accept failure. He's legit crazy. He insisted they implement a store social media app for employees to use to communicate, tracked their use, and Lampert would get into flame wars on the app when people complained about their store/job/Sears company. I almost forgot, the Sears-Craftsmen tools break up. I think he decided not to pay Craftsmens tools for a quarter in order to force them into accepting less, and Craftsmen said "go gently caress yourself" and ended their decades long relationship with Sears. From all the press at the time it's seems like Craftsmen tools were a huge part of Sears' percieved value. pentyne has a new favorite as of 20:40 on Jan 29, 2020 |
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Jan 29, 2020 20:36
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It really cannot be overemphasized how bugfucking crazy Lampert is, he would show up at the HQ like twice a year and you'd always be able to tell because half of everything would be shut down or clogged with a totally extraneous security detail.
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Jan 29, 2020 20:54
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I used to work at Ace Hardware and they had a deal with Craftsman well before CM got bought by B&D. Basically every old dude who came in to swap out a wrench mentioned they no longer had any reason to ever go to Sears anymore. I guess Sears is also famous for appliances but Craftsman was definitely a major part of Sears's identity.
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Jan 29, 2020 20:54
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food court bailiff posted:It really cannot be overemphasized how bugfucking crazy Lampert is, he would show up at the HQ like twice a year and you'd always be able to tell because half of everything would be shut down or clogged with a totally extraneous security detail. The article talks about that but chalks it up to not liking to fly but it isn't because he's a huge baby about the time he got kidnapped?
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Jan 29, 2020 20:56
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Garrand posted:I used to work at Ace Hardware and they had a deal with Craftsman well before CM got bought by B&D. Basically every old dude who came in to swap out a wrench mentioned they no longer had any reason to ever go to Sears anymore. Craftsmen was pretty much a quality tool. My dad used to gush about how when he broke one they'd replace it no problem. Whenever he needed a new one, Sears was the first place he'd go to. They're probably all cheap poo poo now though.
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Jan 29, 2020 21:06
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Groovelord Neato posted:The article talks about that but chalks it up to not liking to fly but it isn't because he's a huge baby about the time he got kidnapped? I was gonna say that being kidnapped is presumably quite a traumatic event you probably don't want to repeat, but seeing as he "talked himself free" I can only assume they were really lovely kidnappers.
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Jan 29, 2020 21:31
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tight aspirations posted:I was gonna say that being kidnapped is presumably quite a traumatic event you probably don't want to repeat, but seeing as he "talked himself free" I can only assume they were really lovely kidnappers. They were tremendously lovely kidnappers and only managed to kidnap him in the first place because he is, as previously noted, just really stupid and crazy.
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Jan 29, 2020 21:33
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tight aspirations posted:I was gonna say that being kidnapped is presumably quite a traumatic event you probably don't want to repeat, but seeing as he "talked himself free" I can only assume they were really lovely kidnappers. They wanted 3 million he said he'd give them 5 and they dropped him off and he walked to a police station and the cops tracked them down via their credit card. And it happened almost two decades ago he can get over it.
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Jan 29, 2020 21:34
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Iron Crowned posted:Craftsmen was pretty much a quality tool. My dad used to gush about how when he broke one they'd replace it no problem. Whenever he needed a new one, Sears was the first place he'd go to. Yeah, they're no better than the Pittsburgh brand from Harbor Freight, and those are like 1/3 the cost. Even the Husky and Kobalt brands from HD and Lowe's are better than Craftsmen has been the past several years. And I think all of them have the same "if the tool's broke just walk and and we'll replace it off the shelf no questions asked" policy, at least for simple hand tools.
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Jan 29, 2020 21:42
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Garrand posted:I guess Sears is also famous for appliances but Craftsman was definitely a major part of Sears's identity. Kenmore is a Sears exclusive, but it’s just a rebadged Whirlpool or LG. It’s a good brand and they’re considered quality appliances, but with a little research you can get the exact same things elsewhere. So most of the brand value is the perception that Kenmore is exclusive. We stayed at an AirBnB and everything was Kenmore. The owners just went to a Sears and bought one of each. That’s what people used to do. How do you gently caress up a revenue stream like that? Oh yeah, Lambert.
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Jan 29, 2020 21:44
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It's Craftsman, people  I mean, their tools are run-of-the-mill-to-trash now, but if we're gonna keep talking about them...
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Jan 29, 2020 21:46
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Sears missed out on a marketing bonanza with Craftsma’am.
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Jan 29, 2020 22:05
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One of the few remaining K-Marts is in the Twin Cities in the middle of a major area of Minneapolis. It has been an impediment to any kind of traffic reflow or what have you because it is smack dab in the middle. I can only imagine how much that has pushed up its valuation. I suspect there will be a celebration when it finally gets the can.
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Jan 29, 2020 22:48
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Beachcomber posted:Can they please come to California? What you want is an HEB. It's pretty much the only thing my wife and I are going to miss about Texas.
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Jan 29, 2020 23:14
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Garrand posted:I used to work at Ace Hardware and they had a deal with Craftsman well before CM got bought by B&D. Basically every old dude who came in to swap out a wrench mentioned they no longer had any reason to ever go to Sears anymore. Appliances, tools, and the auto centers. Being stuck in the malls was their biggest problem, but they were unique among department stores and had a reputation for quality that maybe could have been parlayed that into a newer, better model. Instead they got sold to some venture capitol mad scientist who's earliest steps were destroying all that.
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Jan 29, 2020 23:59
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there wolf posted:Appliances, tools, and the auto centers. Being stuck in the malls was their biggest problem, but they were unique among department stores and had a reputation for quality that maybe could have been parlayed that into a newer, better model. Instead they got sold to some venture capitol mad scientist who's earliest steps were destroying all that. Sears was 99% of the way to having a huge online presence, all they literally had to do was turn the Sears catalog into a website and hook up a credit card processor. But the idea never occurred to them before Amazon did it first.
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Jan 30, 2020 00:06
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Iron Crowned posted:Craftsmen was pretty much a quality tool. My dad used to gush about how when he broke one they'd replace it no problem. Whenever he needed a new one, Sears was the first place he'd go to. I worked at Sears on a few different occasions. When I first started must have been the dying days of Craftsman being a quality brand. Someone would come in with a broken tool, we'd toss it in a bin and let them leave with a brand new replacement. No hassle. The next time I'd work for Sears, they'd limited what this worked for. They'd make us fix wrenches, when possible, with these awful cheap replacement kits. Plastic pieces. It would take forever to install a spring that needed a tiny ball bearing on one end. They also rewarded the top credit card selling cashiers with their choice of departments, which was usually tools. I guess it was easier to con people into signing up for cards there than in any of the clothing departments.
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Jan 30, 2020 00:12
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How many Kmarts still even exist? The last ones closed around here years ago.
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Jan 30, 2020 00:13
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Iron Crowned posted:Craftsmen was pretty much a quality tool. My dad used to gush about how when he broke one they'd replace it no problem. Whenever he needed a new one, Sears was the first place he'd go to. IIRC they outsourced a lot of their manufacturing to China some years ago but there's certain types of tools manufactured the old way in the US. Mainly simpler things like wrenches and screwdrivers.
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Jan 30, 2020 00:19
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Boywhiz88 posted:One of the few remaining K-Marts is in the Twin Cities in the middle of a major area of Minneapolis. It has been an impediment to any kind of traffic reflow or what have you because it is smack dab in the middle. I can only imagine how much that has pushed up its valuation. I suspect there will be a celebration when it finally gets the can. The city owns it now. $8 million. K-mart has a lease on it until 2053.
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Jan 30, 2020 00:52
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rndmnmbr posted:Sears was 99% of the way to having a huge online presence, all they literally had to do was turn the Sears catalog into a website and hook up a credit card processor. But the idea never occurred to them before Amazon did it first. Making it all the more crazy, Prodigy was a joint effort between Sears and IBM. And Sears also had what would qualify today as an e-commerce portal on CompuServe even earlier. They had the future right in their hands and pissed it away right as it was taking off.
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Jan 30, 2020 01:14
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ReidRansom posted:What you want is an HEB. It's pretty much the only thing my wife and I are going to miss about Texas. Never been to a HEB. Publix has delicious subs, and Wegmans is just completely awesome. Safeway would probably be fine if they didn't have ridiculous turnover and/or didn't deliberately understaff. I don't know why the union puts up with it.
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Jan 30, 2020 01:20
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