Opinions Are Everything

Sears Holding Company just released their first set of stores (79 out of 100 to 120) that they are closing. The hardest hit is FL, with GA and MI being second closes to being hit the hardest. We should expect to see at least a couple more, but they haven’t been too clear about when they will unveil the next set. Here is the list in the mean time for those of you who want to see what stores will be closed.

According to Yahoo these are the first round of stores to close down.

— Alabama (3): Sears in Mobile; Kmart in Auburn and Gadsden.
— California (3): Sears in El Monte and San Diego (2).
— Colorado (3): Sears in Longmont; Kmart in Broomfield and Glenwood Springs.
— Florida (11): Sears in Crystal River, Deland, Port St. Lucie, Stuart, West Palm Beach; Kmart in Callaway, Fernandina Beach, New Smyrna Beach, Orange City, Pompano Beach and St. Augustine.
— Georgia (6): Sears in Macon; Kmart in Atlanta, Buford, Columbus, Douglasville and Jonesboro.
— Idaho (1): Sears in Lewiston.
— Indiana (3): Sears in Anderson; Kmart in Indianapolis and St. John.
— Iowa (2): Kmart in Cedar Rapids and Davenport.
— Kansas (1): Sears in Lawrence.
— Kentucky (3): Sears in Middleboro; Kmart in Hazard and Winchester.
— Maryland (1): Sears in Ellicott City.
— Michigan (6): Sears in Adrian, Brighton, Chesterfield Township, Harper Woods, Monroe and Washington Township.
— Minnesota (4): Kmart in Duluth, New Hope, White Bear Lake and Willmar.
— Mississippi (3): Sears in Columbus, Jackson and McComb.
— Missouri (2): Sears in Lee’s Summit and St. Louis.
— New Hampshire (2): Sears in Keene and Nashua.
— North Carolina (4): Sears in High Point, Morehead City, Rocky Mount and Statesville.
— Ohio (6): Kmart in Chagrin Falls, Columbus, Medina, Springfield and Toledo (2).
— Oregon (1): Sears in Roseburg.
— Pennsylvania (2): Sears in Pottstown and Upper Darby.
— South Carolina (1): Sears in Sumter.
— Tennessee (4): Sears in Antioch, Cleveland, Oak Ridge; Kmart in Hendersonville.
— Virginia (3): Sears in Norfolk; Kmart in Midlothian and Richmond.
— Washington (2): Sears in Walla Walla; Kmart in Lacey.
— Wisconsin (2): Sears in West Baraboo; Kmart in Rice Lake.

Are you living in any of these towns that are to be affected by these closings? I am personally glad to see that my own town’s stores have survived the first round, but then again they are always extremely busy with customers. However, I do still stand by my original claim that they are closing due to fear of next year’s elections. What do you think?

image source-Clarkbw

Yes, I am aware that it has been a long time (over a year in fact) since I last posted and I am truly sorry for it. However, I am not here to go into personal details and I will only share if my readers want more info. But I have decided to come back and I really mean it this time. 2012 is almost here and we all know that this is the year that the end is supposed to happen (which I will go into more detail about later on). However, the real reason is that I wanted to bring ethics, politics, social issues, and religion back to the forefront. 2012 is also the election year and I want to throw in my opinion. But today I am going to start off with the news about Sears.

As we all know that around 2008 the economy started to fall and we have since seen a big slump in retail. After much Bush bashing, Obama has finally slowed down on it for a while and started creating his own negative effect. Unlike his campaign promises of hope and change, we have remained in the slump. Many stores have shut down all together (i.e Circuit City, Borders, etc). But it has also given new life to mass discount retailers such as Kmart and Sears. This was of course all good news and every time I went to either store’s crowds have always been there. So the news of Sears Holding Company closing 100 to 120 stores was shocking.

Sears Holdings has released a press release stating that they will be closing up to 120 under performing stores due to lack of expected revenue. While they haven’t released a list of what locations will be shut down or how many jobs will be lost yet, they do promise to post the list to their official media website. In the mean time here are the details.

Close 100 to 120 Kmart and Sears Full-line stores. We expect these store closures to generate $140 to $170 million of cash as the net inventory in these stores is sold and we expect to generate additional cash proceeds from the sale or sublease of the related real estate. Further, we intend to optimize the space allocation based on category performance in certain stores. Final determination of the stores to be closed has not yet been made. The list of stores closing will be posted at www.searsmedia.com when final determination is made.

Excluding the effect of store closures, we currently expect to reduce 2012 peak domestic inventory by $300 million from the 2011 level of $10.2 billion at the end of the third quarter as a result of cost decreases in apparel, tighter buys and a lower inventory position at the beginning of the fiscal year.

Focus on improving gross profit dollars through better inventory management and more targeted pricing and promotion.

Reduce our fixed costs by $100 to $200 million.

I am not sure what to say about this. Sears has always done well when I have gone in my local location and same with Kmart. While I know that Kmart bought Sears while they were hurting, I am not sure if either company had enough common sense to make this choice. Both have been hurting for a while now and Kmart closed most of their nicer stores around 10 years ago. Now Sears has been affected by them in a bad way, well depending on the location actually. It just makes them look like they don’t know what they are doing. I am sure that if they spent time competing more with Walmart & Target they might actually find their niche. But they seem busy trying to focus on tools or becoming a grocery store. I hate to see them hurting, but they need to pull their act together quickly.

However, with that being said I will add in that I do think that they are doing better than they are letting on. Despite that I wouldn’t be surprised if one of their reasons are the fact that they are uncertain about next year. It seems like we are not sure what will happen in politics and the economy, so I am assuming more companies will follow.

So tell us how tell us how you feel about this news. Have you shopped at these stores in the past few years? If so, what do you think about their strategy? Is it working or not?

Canada is the only country in the world that is booming in their economy at this point. In fact, their economy grew 6.1% in this year first 3 months alone! But the main question here is why? How are they keeping their economy floating and not sinking? Well, to be honest their answer is very simple-no risky business.
That is right; while Europe and the US both took major risk with sub prime loans could be found via their banks. And that has paid off for them it appears.
I like the way that they work and it shows that it is one way to keep your countries economy without flopping. I think other countries should take heed and follow how Canada has worked this out. Not only did their economy grow, they also have earned all the jobs lost at first.
So the question here is this, why doesn’t Europe and the US copy Canada’s lead? Should we or should we keep going down this major path of debt and destruction? I want to know your answers to these problems.

Yesterday I saw some interesting tweets and a blog post regarding monthly budgets being a game. It got me thinking and in my opinion turning a tight budget as a game for kicks and laughs lessens the important lesson a budget teaches. Which is self-control.

Many people who place themselves on it think that they cannot survive on one and thus test the waters. Yet millions of families and people have no choice but to live on a budget, which they do survive on it.

Now only does it make living on a budget a game takes away the value of it, it also causes people to think less of a budget. Like being on a budget is silly or makes people just cheap. Which for the most part, could not be further away from the truth.

Many families who live on a budget do not do this for kicks and laughs like some bloggers, or do not do it just to be cheap-for them it really is a matter of surviving.  People need to see that in this economy, many people have to be frugal and this is not a game.

Do you think living on a budget for games is wrong? I want your opinions to be heard.

If you have read my original blog location in 2008, you would have seen that I had plenty of topics regarding the current economic troubles. But just when things start to look a bit more normal(of course this has to do with the economy cylce and not who is in office. Take a look at FDR and see that he did not bring them out of the great depression), Europe is back at the table with economic issues. Which also brings back the topic to rest of the world.
It appears that since Germany and the IMF gave a “loan” to Greece, Europe has been worried about there own status among the Euro. Yet that quickly sends waves across there stock market, which in turn flows out to the rest of worlds stock markets.
The real question here is all these talks about going back into this depression real or fake?
You may wonder why anybody would ask if they are fake? Well, for around 20 years they have talked about a one world government and one world money system. If they make it sound like it will fall again, people will quickly pull out of stocks, which leads to it going down. Thus that leads to a round about of loss around the rest of the economy. If they do that, more people will rely on government support system and that will allow them to have more control.
In a sense, it is the perfect storm for them to issue a one world government if this was to happen.
Granted, we will not know what will happen in a few months down the line. This could all be talk and nothing may happen. Or again, it may happen.
What are your thoughts on this?

image credit-Wikipedia