By Mark Esposito, Weekend Contributor
By any standards it’s been a bloodbath. Nine straight quarters of losses at Sears and it’s stock plummeting 15% this year alone. It’s cousin, K-Mart on life support after contributing to the near $1 billion loss for the holding company that owns both for the first half of this year. Over at Target, still reeling from customer outrage at its data breach, things weren’t much better. Profits plunged 62% last quarter compared to the same period last year. On Wednesday, Target cuts its profit predictions again to avoid a wholesale run against its stock as Wall Street expectations continue to drop. It’s stock is off 5% this year. At that flagship of retail, Walmart, seas are swirling as the giant reports flat sales and financially reluctant shoppers. Most of its growth is coming from smaller stores though its superstores maintain the sales course for the massive chain. Company earning grew at a snails pace of 2.8% this year despite massive sales promotions and even deeper price cuts. J.C. Penney remains the old man of retail continuing its post-no coupon strategy recovery but an an anemic pace. The best that can be said is that its “operating income for the quarter was a loss of $70 million which represents a $325 million or 82 % improvement over last year.” Whoopee! Even consumer electronics big leaguer Sony announced plans to close most of its retail outlets in the U.S.
Watching the waves roll in here in Duck, NC, I have to admit things seem pretty peaceful and serene. It got me wondering why the folks in Ferguson, Mo. are demonstrating on a daily basis about their policing. Wonderment stopped last evening when I came across this video by 35-year veteran of the St. Louis County Police Department, Sgt. Major Dan Page. Former Green Beret and supervising cop, Dan’s vaguely known to most CNN viewers as the enlightened peace officer who shoved reporter Don Lemon from a Ferguson street corner as he tried reporting on the mass protest of 17-year-old Michael Brown’s police-facilitated killing. Lemon was shoved and then was herded to some “Free Speech Zone” in a remote parking lot. Now street-savvy Page is back … and with a right-wing philosophy and blood thirsty vengeance that you’d have to go to 1970s Cambodia to match — “We can kill you anyway we want!”
