Sears, Trump and the Age of Bull
How BS is affecting 21st Century America.
The following is a series of stories on the downfall of Sears and Kmart. To read past stories and listen to podcasts, please go here and here.
If there’s been anything that has been heartbreaking for me to watch over the last few years, it has been the demise of Sears and Kmart. Yes, like a lot of places a lot of other retailers, you could say this is the story of two retailers that did not update with the times. But the story of Sears is in reality, the story of a hedge fund manager who either didn’t know how to run a company or didn’t care. Since 2005 Eddie Lampert has had a role in Sears and he never ran the company well. When Lampert came on the scene in 2005, Sears and Kmart had some 3500 stores. Now Kmart is down to 34 stores. That wasn’t a typo.
Lampert’s business style is head-scratching. He has run the company in a ruthless and cold-hearted fashion. For a long time, I’ve thought this was all about the evils of hedge funds and private equity. I still think that has a role, but another thought has come into my mind: what if besides being cold-hearted, he is incredibly incompetent? What if he thinks he is the best businessman there is and can’t see how bad he really is?
