Posted on 07/23/2013 2:09:29 PM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
She never was.
Reality Check.
This is in Salon.
All else can be true, but always remember when you read an enemy publication, they are our enemy.
Interesting article.
Your post might get flamed - big time.
I’ve been suspicious of Ayn Rand - mostly because of her philosophy of objectivism and atheism.
I read a very good critique of objectivism a while ago, and I knew that Rand’s whole system was built on a house of cards.
Don't let your hatred for Ayn Rand blind you to the fact you're posting a leftist hit piece that's completely drivel.
This is pure leftist commie pap.
He adores Ayn Rand, and is reported to have given out copies of Atlas Shrugged during an ESL annual dinner. Lampert is also a fan of Friedrich von Hayek, the Austrian economist beloved by conservatives and libertarians. As a Robert Rubin protégé, he absorbed the lessons of a man whose discredited economic focus on budget deficits ended up starving the country’s infrastructure, education and alternative energy.
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Ah! This explains everything.
Sears has Gone Gault.
“Tense looking workers hover over merchandise”
The last time I bought anything at Sears, after receiving the pitch for an extended service contract from two such workers, the one ringing me up made a last effort. I stopped him, since reciting this memorized stuff takes a while, and told him I was familiar with the program.
Miffed, he replied, “So you don’t even want to hear about?”
So I pay, they debit my card although the item has to be special ordered: none in the back. The day after the arrival date, I call: “Oh yeah, we’ve had that in since (a few days earlier).”
Like I said, that was it for me and Sears.
Look! An article in “Salon” (consider that!) that equilibrates some self-absorbed 1980 CEO with Rand to...make Rand look bad.
See, you Randian conservatives are just plain fools!
Please. Sure, Lampert was an egotist like Rand. His business model was not based on any Atlas “industry” model.
This is Cr@p. Sears dug it’s own grave. It was the largest retailer by far in the 1980’s. They tried to become a conglomerate, Sears, Allstate, Dean Witter, Discover, Coldwell Banker, were all part of it.
In the retail stores, they become known as the king of the bait and switch sales. They got surpassed by Wal-Mart, which was run by better retailers, period. Businesses rise and businesses fall, for a variety of reasons. Don’t blame Ayn Rand. The writer is obviously not a fan of the free market, but proposes no alternative.
How Ayn Rand got dragged into this is beyond me.
At times I bemoan the metrics used to measure those individuals running companies because all of the focus goes to achieving those metrics, sometimes at the expense of what is good for the company.
But dividing and running separate units isn’t what hurt Sears. Aside from tools why would anyone shop there?
Bump for later...
Rand is an evil atheist FR mullahs arriving in 3... 2... 1...
This article is written by someone who doesn’t seem to know quite all of the Sears story and has filled in what he doesn’t know (a lot) with personal philosophy. Selling real estate is a pretty good strategy in a world that is shifting to internet sales, much like Sears shifted to real estate when people shifted away from catalog sales.
What’s funny is that they forget the part of how Walmart helped take down Sears, mostly by doing better on Rand than Sears.
Sears began digging its own grave at least 20 years ago by their penchant for offering credit to everybody to be able to afford their grossly overpriced products. Sears then became known as the place NOT to shop by right thinking consumers leaving them with the dregs and deadbeats as their primary customers. It sounds like this CEO at least found a way to wring out some last bits of profit before it completely collapsed.
My own point of view is that when Sears gave up catalog sales they gave up a position that they had THE commanding presence in. If they had kept it up they, not Amazon might now be the powerhouse of Internet Commerce.
Of course that’s all conjecture isn’t it? That’s not what happened and really when it comes to business one should look at the reality of what is, no matter how much you might hate what you see.
Excellent observation
Ayn Rand did not kill Sears.
Ayn Rand did not kill K-Mart
Customers for a variety of reasons simply decided to shop at Wal-Mart, Best Buy, on-line and so forth.
Sears stopped innovating years ago. As I recall 10 years after most retailers had toll free numbers for their catalog customers, Sears still had a regular number and when customers called long distance they (the customers had to pay for the calls).
And certainly Hayek had nothing to do with the closing of Sears stores.
Don’t let your hatred for Ayn Rand blind you to the fact you’re posting a leftist hit piece that’s completely drivel.
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Well said.
You think his admiration of von Hayek is also something to be deprecated?
Please actually read what you post. You can tear Rand down all you want, but someone who posts blogs from Salon as if they're authoritative is the person lacking in common sense, not Ayn Rand.
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