Anyone have numbers around how much Lampert personally put in and how much he personally will get out of Sears?
What are we expecting returns to be here after all the financial engineering and various fees from investors?
A Billionaire’s Sears Fiasco Is Finally Nearing Its End
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Re: A Billionaire’s Sears Fiasco Is Finally Nearing Its End
#32I still cannot believe that Lampert’s actions here are legal, or that the board didn’t fire him for the obvious conflict of interest.
Re: A Billionaire’s Sears Fiasco Is Finally Nearing Its End
#33Re: A Billionaire’s Sears Fiasco Is Finally Nearing Its End
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Objectivism really is a vacant and pretty incoherent "philosophy." It's no surprise she presented in in the form of tedious novels with wooden characters rather than engaging with actual philosphers. I think its popularity is due to the fact that it tells people what they want to hear, and they can think of themselves as John Galt-esque ubermenschen.
> they can think of themselves as John Galt-esque ubermenschen. Of all the heroes we could encourage people to have, is John Galt really so awful? He's described as bright, hard-working, self-reliant, but also collaborative and supportive of the work of those around him. He's driven and entrepreneurial, but not anti-social. He doesn't come across as anti-government so much as desiring government that isn't kleptocrat…
The fundamental problem with Rand's ideology is her cartoonish categorization of everyone that isn't Galt-esque or an enthusiastic, hypercompetent support person as evil looters/parasites. Iirc, Galt is basically trying to collapse society for everyone but the former.
When you realize that you can't just write off people because they didn't turn out to be brilliant entrepreneurs or perky worker bees, and that the workings of government and justice are more complicated than Rand would allow, Atlas Shrugged does become pretty repugnant. Granted, she was reacting to her experiences with communism, so I don't totally blame her for going all the way to the other extreme.
But insofar as someone wants to invent great things and do well from them, I don't take issue with that.
Re: A Billionaire’s Sears Fiasco Is Finally Nearing Its End
#35One of the most amazing "secret" benefits at Sears is their "Shop Your Way" loyalty program with Uber. Basically since last fall, every Uber Ride or Uber Eats purchase gives you $2-$4 cash back to use at Sears/Kmart online no matter the cost if you linked your accounts. Given my average Uber Pool is around $5, I've basically been getting 40% off all my Uber Pools for almost a year. It will be missed!
"Shop Your Way" has been pretty cool at K-Mart too. Before I moved basically next to one I did I didn't even know K-Marts were still around. Now I get random "Freecash in points" email coupons to spend like $8-$18 without actually buying anything else (sometimes with strange arbitrary limitations on what the free money is good for, sometimes not).
Re: A Billionaire’s Sears Fiasco Is Finally Nearing Its End
#36Theodore Houser, a former CEO of Sears wrote a book, "Big Business and Human Values".
The book is really worth reading because the contrast between Houser and Lambert (and most all CEOs now) is striking. I think just the title of his book demonstrates how different capitalism is now in comparison to Houser's day.
"Human Values" is not something we hear CEOs or financial talking heads speak of much anymore. (Has Jim Cramer ever used that phrase?)
I will point out that Arthur Martinez did help bring Sears back to a customer centric business model in the mid-90s but he missed the boat when the internet came into the mix. Sears was perfectly positioned to become what Amazon is now and they did almost nothing to move on it.
Hard to imagine anyone rising up the corporate ranks like Houser did these days. I can't think of a single example that compares to it.
I think it would be interesting to review Sears fall from the top from that perspective because I suspect we'd probably see their decline began when they stopped promoting CEOs from within their own ranks. That changed the focus from their customers to their investors, and that's why they're where they are today.
Re: A Billionaire’s Sears Fiasco Is Finally Nearing Its End
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Somehow both for Lampert
I suspect Lampert the Sears CEO is losing money, Lampert the hedge fund manager is making it via a slo-mo takeover of Sears assets from other Sears shareholders.
I would like to believe that someone is checking that he doesn't short his own stock ;)
Re: A Billionaire’s Sears Fiasco Is Finally Nearing Its End
#38This whole saga with Eddie Lambert is a great example of how the rich fail upward.
Opportunity cost is a thing. Eddie Lambert may be a genius hedge fund manager, but is a terrible CEO of a retail company. Sears/Sears Canada accounted for 53% of his hedge fund's portfolio holdings in 2016 [1], and now they have to pick . The S&P 500 was rallying like crazy at the time, so he definitely could have gotten a lot more if he were a regular hedge fund manager.
[1] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/030716/top-5...
Re: A Billionaire’s Sears Fiasco Is Finally Nearing Its End
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
> they can think of themselves as John Galt-esque ubermenschen. Of all the heroes we could encourage people to have, is John Galt really so awful? He's described as bright, hard-working, self-reliant, but also collaborative and supportive of the work of those around him. He's driven and entrepreneurial, but not anti-social. He doesn't come across as anti-government so much as desiring government that isn't kleptocrat…
The fundamental problem with Rand's ideology is her cartoonish categorization of everyone that isn't Galt-esque or an enthusiastic, hypercompetent support person as evil looters/parasites. Iirc, Galt is basically trying to collapse society for everyone but the former. When you realize that you can't just write off people because they didn't turn out to be brilliant entrepreneurs or perky worker bees, and that the wor…
I disagree.
In the book society was already collapsing. Plenty of regular people in the novel realized something was wrong and removed themselves from the looters' economy to roam the country.
Galt simply refused to be the one to prop up the looters failing economy.
Interesting that you see Galt as the one collapsing society. Rand's point was that the looters collapsed society and that they were too ignorant to understand why or how.
Re: A Billionaire’s Sears Fiasco Is Finally Nearing Its End
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Objectivism really is a vacant and pretty incoherent "philosophy." It's no surprise she presented in in the form of tedious novels with wooden characters rather than engaging with actual philosphers. I think its popularity is due to the fact that it tells people what they want to hear, and they can think of themselves as John Galt-esque ubermenschen.
> they can think of themselves as John Galt-esque ubermenschen. Of all the heroes we could encourage people to have, is John Galt really so awful? He's described as bright, hard-working, self-reliant, but also collaborative and supportive of the work of those around him. He's driven and entrepreneurial, but not anti-social. He doesn't come across as anti-government so much as desiring government that isn't kleptocrat…
wholeheartedly agree.
I'm not an Ayn Rand sycophant by any means, but there _is_ some merit to her literature that doesn't discredit it entirely.