Day 136 Nat'l Emergency: Person of the Year Choices, Turkey Time Off, Jobs Off, School Time

Five months before Time magazine releases its Person of the Year issue it is safe to say there are three significant candidates whose image could grace the front cover: 

*George Floyd, whose cellphone-recorded death at the knee of a Minneapolis policeman sparked nationwide outrage and galvanized Black Lives Matter protests; 

*Dr. Anthony Fauci, whose calm Dutch uncle counsel on the coronavirus has soothed and informed a frightened and conflicted nation; 

*The embattled frontline healthcare worker, who has selflessly placed themself in danger to heal a sick country and comfort the dying in the absence of quarantined loved ones.

Even if he wins the presidency, Joe Biden would not be elevated to cover boy status. Not this year. 

Similarly, Donald Trump wouldn’t qualify even if he manages a comeback to secure a second term. 

Chief Justice John Roberts has received lots of ink for his high-wire role in shepherding the Supreme Court, but he, too, falls short in overall dominance of the year. 

For sure, the two main stories of 2020 have been the coronavirus with its worldwide impact on health and the economy, as well as international political repercussions, and the outpouring of protest and energy for racial equality after the killings of unarmed Blacks and actions by ordinary white citizens to physically and verbally assault minorities.

It’s About Time: More than a dozen years have passed since I called on retail chains to keep their stores closed on Thanksgiving so employees could spend time with their families instead of aiding in the pursuit of every last disposable dollar. Consumers, as well, would benefit from not running out to the store once dessert has been shoveled down their throat. 

My perch as editor and publisher of Chain Store Age is long gone, but it is pleasing to note that Walmart, the nation’s, nay, the world’s, largest retailer has decided it would not open Thanksgiving. Apparently, Walmart listened to the suggestion advanced by one of its employees in a letter to management.

“We know it’s been a trying year, and you’ve stepped up. We want you to enjoy the day at home with your loved ones,” John Furner, president and CEO of Walmart USA, wrote in a memo to employees. 

Fewer Jobs: Donald Trump promised to bring back manufacturing jobs if elected in 2016. How’s he doing?

Not so great. Though manufacturing jobs increased in the first two years of his presidency, the last two have been not so good. 

Compared to when he took the oath of office there are almost 300,000 fewer manufacturing jobs. Of course, the pandemic is a key factor, an excuse Trump will surely cite if challenged on his record. 

But as The New York Times pointed out, “U.S. factory output declined throughout 2019, as Mr. Trump’s trade war intensified, and it has dropped further this year, suggesting there is no boom in new American factories. Since peaking in mid-2019, corporate investment has  declined for three consecutive quarters. Total foreign direct investment in manufacturing was nearly one-third lower in the first three years of Mr. Trump’s tenure than it was in the final three years of President Barack Obama’s.

“Mr. Trump ostensibly fought his trade war on behalf of American manufacturing. But economists say it has actually been a drag on most U.S. factories, by increasing prices for components and inciting foreign retaliation.  It has also coincided with a plunge in Chinese investment in the United States to $5 billion in 2019, the lowest level since 2009, according to Rhodium Group, a research firm” (https://nyti.ms/2CClSib).

School Time? As part of his reelection strategy Trump is pushing for a September opening of schools. But evidence on the impact of bringing children back to classes where they could become infected, and then sending them home where they could transfer the coronavirus to other family members, is mixed (https://nyti.ms/2ZjbJj5). 

New research has shown that children under 10 years are not as susceptible, but transmission is more prevalent as student age hits double digits. If schools open before the general public has appropriately contained the pandemic, a rebound in cases could occur, as happened in Israel.  

Few dispute the benefit of having children resume classes. But just as most parents believe in inoculations to protect their offspring from childhood illnesses, most also would think twice about placing their children at risk with the added fear they could be exposing themselves and other family members, especially grandparents. 

Day 15 Nat'l Emergency: Time for Humor and ...

Had enough depressing news? I’ll try not to inflict more on you today.

To help you cope, click on this article from the Harvard Business Review. It explains the emotion many of us are feeling is grief and provides ideas how to deal with it: https://hbr.org/2020/03/that-discomfort-youre-feeling-is-grief (my thanks to my sister, Lee, a retired psychological social worker and elementary school teacher in Los Angeles).

Deserving of Thanks: A former colleague at Lebhar-Friedman, Barbara Hochberg, posted this appropriate note the other day:

“After COVID-19 is over, I better NEVER hear anyone trash ‘low end’ workers again. Those people at the grocery store, the Dollar General workers, those fast food workers, the Walmart employees, those people you didn’t even think deserved to have a wage to survive on? They’re some of the ones currently carrying the country through this mess, making sure you and your families have food and essentials to survive on, risking their health to help yours. And most won’t even have the money to go to the doctor if they get sick. I better NEVER see someone be unappreciative or dismissive of them again!”

Amen!

I overheard my wife and one of her friends talking on the phone the other day. Both said they haven’t put makeup on in two weeks or performed other beauty regimens. Safe to say, if younger females are similarly beautified each day of home coronavirus containment we might not experience the population explosion we did after the two New York City blackouts years ago. Worth checking the level of baby deliveries next December and January. 

Read On?: One would think that given forced confinement one would finally have the time and inclination to read The New York Times from cover to cover, so to speak. One would think so, but one would be wrong. 

To begin with, I can’t think of a more depressing activity than reading and reading and reading story after story after story about the pandemic. Especially given the proliferation of media outlets available on the Web, one could spend every waking hour engrossed in despair. Read a few articles, but for the sake of your own sanity, limit what you read and view. Trust me, you will find out about truly important news, good or bad. 

Just Wondering: With all the extended handwashing we are doing these days, will we experience a water shortage in a few months? 

It is no secret that the availability and supply of potable water is considered by some global strategists to be the next trigger point for conflict between nations and states. Georgia and Florida have battled in court on water from a river, while Western states have long been at odds over proper use of the Colorado River. 

For the dog lovers among you, and even for those who love cats or other animals more, feast your eyes on this collage of pictures taken by UPS drivers: https://www.boredpanda.com/ups-drivers-meets-animals-dogs/.

If you’re a Broadway musical fan, here’s a medley of tunes adapted for the coronavirus (again courtesy of my sister): https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2Fn1OCZRann8w&data=02%7C01%7C%7C14e5c75372494ed6637308d7d0dc2923%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637207516301042184&sdata=aPipvS5oC7fg%2F%2F8qB%2Fxopw49tndOevak%2FMH8RcL0HIw%3D&reserved=0

So Sad: It is almost impossible to ignore our “wartime” president’s war on science and anyone who disputes his authority and expertise. In rejecting New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s plea for 30,000 ventilators for affected victims of COVID-19, Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Thursday night, “I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they’re going to be. I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You know, you go into major hospitals sometimes, they’ll have two ventilators. And now all of a sudden they’re saying can we order 30,000 ventilators?” (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-coronavirus-ventilators-new-york-state_n_5e7d651cc5b6256a7a27c911). 

Does Trump think it is a competition between states and governors to see who has the most coronavirus cases and deaths? 

Maybe this mock clip of Trump truly does capture the essence of the man (thanks to my high school classmate Mike Exelbert for forwarding it to me): 

IMG_4157.MOV 

Coronavirus: A Stress Test for Relationships

Prompting the closing of schools, places of work and worship plus venues of entertainment, the novel coronavirus is thrusting partners and families together for extended periods they heretofore did not necessarily endure other than on vacation. To put it succinctly, 24/7 living together has the potential to stress relationships. Or, as my mother said after my father retired, “I married him for breakfast and dinner, not for lunch.”

Some may know my parents worked together for more than three decades, he in the production factory, she in the small glassed enclosed office in the corner of their rented loft on lower Broadway. Mom retired about a decade before Dad. She had gotten used to daytimes without intrusion when she uttered her Garbo-esque “I want to be alone” line.

I can appreciate her position. I retired 10 years before Gilda did 14 months ago. My golden years have been enhanced, but they are different. 

Forced togetherness for couples and families without the luxury of going to movies, plays, concerts, sporting events, museums, even some restaurants and small gatherings with relatives or friends, can strain even the most equanimous of relationships. The uncertainty of not knowing how long togetherness must last is a hidden cost of COVID-19.

Next week’s poker game among my senior citizen friends has been called off. Not as all encompassing as what residents in one Florida retirement complex have to endure: “It is in the best interests of the community to close the social hall, card rooms, aerobics room, arts and crafts, and billiards room as well as the demo kitchen in the clubhouse for 30 days. No HOA (Home Owners Association) or Club events will be permitted,” a notice reads. “… Going forward Bingo, women’s canasta, open canasta, men’s canasta and the March 21 show,  Cove Players, March 30 Board meeting, etc. are all cancelled.” 

Penalty Stroke: Maybe it is because I am bearded, but I have a problem keeping my hands off my face. I am constantly stroking my beard. No amount of coaxing by health authorities advising against it as a precaution against the virus can counterman a habit born half a century ago.

Ah, well, perhaps I’m a little like Trump who repeatedly ignores healthcare advice. He seems to be blasé, even dismissive about professional protocols. A disciple of the Reverend Norman Vincent Peale’s Power of Positive Thinking doctrine, Trump must conduct his life on the theory he is immune to everyday man’s concerns. Exhibit A—his fast food diet, which apart from the girth it has packed onto his body, apparently has not clogged his arteries (or so we must believe absent details on his physical examinations). 

The public has been told not to shake hands. Yet there Trump was during his Friday press conference announcing his declaration of a national emergency to confront COVID-19 pressing the flesh of CVS, Walgreens, Walmart and other executives. You would think leaders of the two largest drug store chains would know better than to shake hands. Most of the assembled team of business and medical leaders did not shake hands (at least in public) with Trump. Only Bruce Greenstein, executive vice president and chief strategy and innovation officer of LHC Group elbow bumped with The Donald. He did it right after the CVS handshake.

Let’s not gloss over Trump’s prior disregard for acceptable hygiene. Despite widespread warnings not to look directly at an August 2017 solar eclipse unless wearing protective eyewear, Trump stared at it with the naked eye even as Melania and Barron wore protective glasses next to him.

And let’s recall porn star Stormy Daniels claims Trump did not wear a condom during their alleged tryst.

Trump’s macho personality and belief in his invulnerability was on display in his initial disdain for taking a test to determine if he contracted COVID-19 after close contact with a Brazilian official last Saturday. Only after repeated questioning during the press conference did he say he likely would be tested at an unknown time when his schedule permits, though the White House physician subsequently said testing was not necessary for him. The test—a swab of the inner cheek—takes seconds to perform. 

Jekyl and Hyde: Trump’s appearances are Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde in nature. He is the latter when reading prepared texts, the former when speaking extemporaneously as evidenced by his dual display during Friday’s Rose Garden statement and press conference.

Answering questions he appeared assured. But as he did Wednesday night during his prime time address to the nation, he seemed boxed in by diction and an inability to comfortably read out loud when making his official pronouncement of national emergency powers. Self proclaimed as a genius with an extraordinary vocabulary, Trump has difficulty reading a speechwriter’s words. 

David Glass, a Successful Successor; Tumbling Tumbleweeds and a First Date

Successful Successor: You probably know the name Sam Walton. He’s the small town Arkansas retailer who turned a five-and-dime chain store operation—the largest Ben Franklin variety store franchise in 1962—into what is now the largest retail company in the world, Walmart. Sam (I’m entitled to call him by his first name because I knew him and, more importantly, he knew me) was as much a showman as a retailer. He knew how to get the most out of people, whether they were store managers, headquarters buyers, truck drivers or cashiers. 

Another aspect of Walton’s success was his ability to spot and employ talent. He chose David Glass years before Glass succumbed to the call from Bentonville, Ark., to become the chief financial officer of a chain with less than a billion dollars in sales. As flamboyant and media savvy as Walton was, Glass was the opposite. Glass was a numbers man. Though he had a dry sense of humor, he was mostly taciturn in public. He let the numbers do most of his talking. 

Glass (I could call him David, for we knew each other, as well) championed supercenters, the cavernous combination of discount stores with a full-fledged grocery, as he had worked for a supermarket chain prior to joining Walmart. His advocacy was spot on. Walmart today sells more grocery items than anyone else in the world. 

When Walton retired as CEO in 1988, Glass succeeded him. During his 12 years at the helm, Walmart sales grew from $16 billion to $165 billion. He pursued international expansion. 

News broke over the weekend that Glass died January 9 from complications from pneumonia. He was 84.

After his retirement in 2000, Glass indulged his passion for baseball by buying the Kansas City Royals. For years the Royals struggled under Glass’ Walmart-inspired low-cost creed. But in 2006 he reversed course, hired Dayton Moore as general manager and started investing in personnel. The Royals won the World Series in 2015. Last year Glass sold the franchise for about $1 billion. Not bad for his initial $96 million investment.

As much as Glass was instrumental for Walmart’s success, it was his time before the NBC Dateline television camera that sticks in my mind. He was not the most approachable of Walmart executives. Behind his resonant baritone voice and wry sense of humor, I always suspected he did not like sharing anything with the press. 

His signature moment with the media occurred in December 1992 on NBC Dateline. Glass was confronted with allegations Walmart suppliers in Bangladesh employed underage child laborers, that the company’s vaunted Made in America program was a sham.

At the time, Glass had bushy, dark eyebrows that slanted up his forehead. With the Dateline camera angled from below his seat, he was the picture of Mephistopheles. He was the picture of evil incarnate.

Glass stormed out of the interview. Though he returned to face the Dateline cameras weeks later, the damage to his and Walmart’s reputation was done. 

Shortly after that incident Walmart professionalized its media relations office. Camera angles were to be scrutinized as diligently as profit and loss statements. 

Tumbling Tumbleweeds: The national weather has been frustratingly crazy of late. Torrential rainstorms. Tornadoes in the heartland and south. Heat waves in the northeast followed by a massive snowstorm blasting across the continent. And earlier this month a mess of tumbleweeds in the Pacific Northwest that buried cars and stalled traffic on a state highway in Washington (https://www.livescience.com/tumbleweed-traps-cars-washington-highway.html).

Have you ever driven as a tumbleweed swirled into you? I have. It was a scary experience.

As I was motoring—okay, speeding—down an interstate outside Reno, NV, on my way to an interview at a JC Penney distribution center a wall of tumbleweeds three lanes wide was blowing towards me. There was no avoiding a collision. I braced for contact. 

When it happened I could do nothing more than smile at my naiveté. Had I not watched so many westerns to know tumbleweeds were mostly air? When my car penetrated the tumbleweed it was as if it evaporated before my eyes. 

It was a surreal experience. 

A Different Drummer: I just finished watching a CNN documentary recorded earlier this month about Linda Ronstadt. Like many I rank her as one of my all-time favorite singers. 

I first saw Ronstadt in concert at Brooklyn College in the fall of 1968. Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys were the opening act for Country Joe and the Fish. I can’t remember much about Country Joe, but from the moment Ronstadt started her group’s set by wailing “Different Drum” EVERYONE knew hers was a voice that couldn’t be contained within the walls of a concert hall. 

As an associate- and eventual chief editor of a college newspaper I scored free tickets, always in good locations, to many concerts. Not that tickets cost a lot back then. For a Joni Mitchell-Tim Hardin concert a month later ticket prices were $3.50, $3.00 and $2.50. In today’s dollars that would be $25.71, $22.04, and $18.37, respectively. 

College concerts back then mostly featured folk musicians and comedians. Gilda’s and my first date was a Tom Paxton-Dick Gregory concert in December 1969. Gilda asked me to accompany her to a Christmas party one of her political science teachers was hosting in his Brooklyn Heights apartment. I said I would go only if she was my date for the Paxton-Gregory concert. The rest, as they say, is 50 years and running history. 

Why Are So Many Stores Closing?

Perhaps you’re wondering why soooo many chain store retailers are closing sooooo many stores, especially after what has been hailed as a gonzo holiday season. To be sure, after every New Year retailers have always pruned deadbeat locations. But the numbers going into the trash bin of history are dizzying. More than 9,000 store units closed last year. A higher number is predicted for 2020 (https://moneywise.com/a/chains-closing-the-most-stores-in-2020).

The names coming off marquees across the country include some venerable labels: Sears, Kmart, Macy’s, Forever 21, Pier 1 Imports, Gap, Chico’s, Bed Bath & Beyond. Why is the contraction reaching unparalleled heights? Though each chain has its own problems, there are common threads that have unraveled throughout the retail industry.

Start with the fact that in the United States we are overstored (forgive me for not providing actual statistics, but after 32 years covering the retail industry as an editor and publisher of Chain Store Age I am taking retirement privilege and just providing trend analysis. You’ll have to trust I know what I am talking about).

How did we get overstored? No retailer thinks their store is not desired by voracious consumers. So when real estate developers pitched less than A+ locations they signed on the bottom line, sometimes induced to do so as the price of landing a truly A+ spot in a different coveted shopping venue owned or operated by the same developer. The developers, of course, needed those tenants to get their construction loans. Thus, it is no wonder that stores in secondary market are closing and with them secondary market shopping centers.

Everyone wants to blame Amazon and other Internet retailers and before them Walmart, Target, Home Depot and an assortment of big box retailers. Yes, they all contributed to the blacking out of storefronts on Main Streets and in strip centers. They killed off lots of independent merchants and weaker chain stores. As for Internet retailing, it still accounts for just about 15% of all sales.

So what’s behind the tsunami of store closings? Lousy merchandising choices, for one. For apparel and fashion home goods stores, if the wrong stuff is put up for sale customers will stay away in droves. As rents and labor costs are high, the combination with the cost of goods put retailers in a swimming pool of red ink.

Many chain stores have high levels of debt because private equity firms bought them by leveraging retail assets, mostly their leases or the land they owned for their stores, warehouses and distribution centers. When sales fail to meet budget expectations debt payments cannot be met. Suppliers refrain from selling them merchandise because if a company files for Chapter XI bankruptcy protection the law allows creditors to claw back all payments made in the prior 90 days. Suppliers fear being paid pennies on the dollar for their products. That’s why the first clue of a pending bankruptcy filing is insufficient product on shelves or clothing racks.

Failure to keep abreast of state of the art technology and distribution efficiencies are more harbingers of doom. Often it’s because companies did not have the cash flow to make the necessary investments. It’s a melting snowball effect in a red hot competitive industry driven by shoppers who demand instant gratification.

Let’s not overlook the polarization of our population. Not our political divide. The economic bifurcation. The fastest growing retail formats are dollar stores and food discounters like Aldi and Lidl, both European imports, that cater to families on tight budgets. Companies that serve middle income consumers are being squeezed.

Being a high end retailer doesn’t guarantee success. Barneys New York failed because of the aforementioned heavy debt load strapped on it by private equity owners. Toys “R” Us, which knocked off almost all toy competitors, succumbed as well from its private equity debt load. Toys “R” Us was never the price leader. It based its success on being in stock on the most wanted toys. When Walmart and Target matched Toys “R” Us on inventory management the game was lost. Walmart and Target had many more stores than Toys “R” Us in most markets, making it more convenient for shoppers to find what they wanted in their stores. Location, location, location. Three keys to success. Or failure.

Can you still make it in retailing? A resounding, emphatic, YES! Required are merchandise tailored to a specific audience; systems that provide seamless customer fulfillment and support; dedicated, driven staff from the top down; sufficient capital, and even more capital; savvy marketing including an Internet presence; and those historical three keys—location, location, location.

Successful retailers make customers their unpaid promoters. Think Trader Joe’s or The Container Store. A successful retailer would be missed if it closed its doors, missed not because it was nearby or a long time presence in a community, but rather because it brought excitement and fulfillment to the often mundane task of buying and selling everyday goods and services plus the occasional frills that make shopping essential and enjoyable.

Rantings on Boycotts, Reading Lists, Japan and Tourism

So Mika Brzezinski, co-anchor of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, is boycotting Equinox, SoulCycle and Hudson Yards because Stephen Ross, one of the investors in the projects, is a big-time Trump supporter and is hosting a fundraiser for his re-election in the Hamptons Friday night. 

Really!?! Have we sunk so low in our ability to think for ourselves that we need media celebrities to promote their actions to generate outrage among the masses? It is regrettable we have made newscasters, if indeed Mika fits that identification, into role models upon whose actions we cling (probably because the media is in cahoots with each other to promote their members’ importance). 

I doubt all the newscasts on all broadcast and cable stations have an aggregate audience anywhere near what Walter Cronkite or David Brinkley had 50 years ago. My point is we are imbuing in today’s news personalities status beyond their reach, influence they don’t deserve. 

If we choose to boycott companies whose leaders or silent partners are not to our liking because of their politics, employment practices or social/religious beliefs, many of us wouldn’t shop Walmart or any other store, let alone Amazon, we wouldn’t buy cars or gasoline, log onto Facebook or Twitter, or eat in Chick-fil-A (rated the favorite fast food restaurant by the American Customer Satisfaction Index for the fourth consecutive year). 

Grow up, America. Make up your own mind.

Reading Lists: Brooklyn College is my alma mater. I’m used to getting mail from it, usually fundraising solicitations. So I was bemused to open an email from the school’s Office of the Provost that began, “Dear Faculty,”.  Apparently I have not submitted my “textbook information to the Brooklyn College Online Bookstore” and Fall classes begin in less than three weeks.

Okay, the bottom of the email notes in really small type, “You are receiving this email because you are a member of the Brooklyn College alumni community.” So, I’m on a mailing list. 

Maybe that’s also the reason theteachersnetwork is now following me on Instagram. I’d like to think musings on my blog, Facebook and Twitter provide some educational insight, and my past does include after school Jewish instruction in a Far Rockaway children’s home when I was in college; in-car driver’s ed instruction after I retired from Chain Store Age; volunteer help at the English as Second Language study hall at White Plains High School; and one-to-one sessions with foreign students as part of the Conversation Partners program at Westchester Community College. 

But, no, I never had a formal teaching position, so why Brooklyn College wants my reading list for a course I am not giving is beyond me. 

Update from March 14, 2011: More than a quarter century ago I provided reflections on my family’s visit to Japan, including the following: 

“Japanese women craved more fulfillment and independence. They deferred marriage for careers and, frankly, because the men were immature. The men had four passions: sumo wrestling, playing pachinko (a vertical pinball game), reading comic books and drinking. Delaying marriage contributed to the country’s negative birth rate.

“Women’s status was so stunted that even if the highest executive at a meeting was female she was still expected to serve tea to all the men. Men did not defer to women, or children, when entering an elevator. They would push Gilda, Dan and Ellie aside to scramble in first.”

A recent article in The New York Times affirmed the choices women were making in deferring marriage, sometimes forever, and the impact their decisions are having on the economy (https://nyti.ms/2yCwMz3). 

Stay Away: In the wake of recent mass shootings in El Paso, Dayton and Gilroy, several foreign countries and Amnesty International are warning tourists about the dangers of visiting the United States. They’re advising travelers to stay away from crowded areas. 

Which leads me to ask, why bother coming to America is you’re going to limit your visit to desolate parts of North Dakota or Utah?

My Letter in The Times Lights the Way

It took more than two weeks, but The New York Times finally published my letter to the editor, online Sunday and in Monday’s printed edition. 

Back on April 12 two of Thomas Edison’s great-grandsons opined in The Times that “the Department of Energy now wants to roll back new efficiency standards (for light bulbs) signed into law by President George W. Bush and updated, as required, during the Obama administration” (https://nyti.ms/2VDXgtT).

The proposed withdrawal is another example of Donald Trump’s demonic compulsion to eliminate any vestige of progressive action by his predecessors, especially if it smacks of any environmental benefit to reduce the impact of climate change.  

The Edison progeny advocated public and congressional opposition to any plan by the Energy Department to narrow the scope of energy saving standards. 

It was in that context that I sent my letter to The Times. With slight editing to my original submission, The Times ran the following:

“We cannot rely on the Trump administration to do the right thing when it comes to enforcing light bulb energy standards. Instead, private enterprise must lead the way.

“Large chain stores—Walmart, Target, Kmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Menards, Costco and Ace Hardware, as well as Amazon—should exert their public service commitment by not buying or stocking less energy efficient incandescent light bulbs.

“Retailers can shine a positive light on the future direction of our country.”

Naturally, not everyone is on board with any plan that would deny consumers the opportunity to buy cheaper 100-watt incandescent bulbs compared to more expensive L.E.D.s. In response to a friend who brought up the issue after seeing my letter, I wrote back, 

“Yes, it will cost more and the poor would be disproportionately hurt. But just as we have required seat belts in cars at a higher cost, just as we require food safety inspections that raise the price of food, just as we have tolls on roads that make travel costlier, there are some mandates that are put in place for the common good. Call it totalitarianism. Or socialism. Or saving the planet for our grandchildren. Doing nothing is not an option for long term survival.”

Here’s how the Edisons put it: “Few actions can reduce the carbon dioxide emissions that are warming the planet as cheaply and easily as replacing energy-wasting bulbs with highly efficient ones. The group (the Natural Resources Defense Council) estimates that if every household in the United States replaced just one old bulb with an L.E.D., the country’s overall electric bill would be cut by more than $5 billion in 10 years, and two million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution would be avoided. 

“The savings are so big because the average American household has around 40 lighting sockets, and many still employ energy-wasting bulbs. We need efficiency standards to spur more innovation and ensure that our store shelves carry new bulbs reflecting the latest technology.

“Regrettably, special interests have reared their heads once again. Big bulb manufacturers supported by the Energy Department prefer to take the cheap, inefficient and environmentally harmful path for short-term profits. They would sacrifice our common good for their selfish greed.”

This was not my first letter published in The Times. Eleven years ago, when Allianz was reported by The Times to be near to securing the naming rights to the then new Meadowlands stadium where the New York Giants and Jets would play, I revealed the link between the company and its history of insuring Nazi death camps. To its credit Allianz already had disclosed on its website its association with the Nazi regime. But The Times article merely identified Allianz as a German financial services company (no doubt that is how the company identifies itself in press releases).

After my letter was published The Times followed up with a major story entitled “Naming Rights and Historic Wrongs.” Less than a week after my letter appeared, after intense public rejection of the Allianz overture, Allianz abandoned its bid. Only then did MetLife step in to secure the naming rights (https://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2010/01/chain-of-one-person-events.html).

Convenience vs. Affordability, The Ethical Dilemmas of the World We Live In

“Time and again, when confronted with the choice between convenience and affordability and the less tangible benefits of emotional intimacy, humans have opted for the former.”

Let’s face it. Aside from living in a material world, we have succumbed to a life of leisure in lieu of exertion. We no longer get up to change the TV channel. We don’t manually roll down car windows anymore. We don’t open the freezer door to get ice. We live in a push button world. 

Mattresses no longer have to be turned every month. For most products we don’t have to trek to the store. Our exercise, instead, is to pick up the Internet or mail order package from the front porch or apartment lobby. 

The premise having been set, if not accepted, please contemplate the shared meaning of three articles I pass along for your edification. The first is from a philosopher, S. Matthew Liao. Writing an Op-Ed in The New York Times, Liao wondered aloud (if you can do so in print) if one has a moral duty to jettison one’s relationship with Facebook given its unconscionable and inexcusable behavior in the 2016 presidential elections and in other activities that have undermined democracy in America and abroad (https://nyti.ms/2zqSUx8). 

Aside from posting my blogs to Facebook, I have a financial interest in professor Liao’s opinion. My broker talked me into buying some Facebook stock shortly after it went public. Am I a silent sinner in the debasement of democratic values? 

It’s not every day, but hardly a week goes by that a box with a smiley face on the cardboard exterior doesn’t land on our front porch. I spent almost all of my journalism career in support of physical retail stores. Chain Store Age, by its very name, heralded my bias. Though the magazine covered mail order and Internet retailers, our first allegiance was to brick and mortar stores. 

When Amazon erupted on the scene, it was as an attack on book stores, most prominently exemplified by Barnes & Noble, B. Dalton Booksellers, Borders, Books-a-Million, Crown Books, to name but a handful.

Now, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is ranked the wealthiest man in the world as his creation sells virtually all types of merchandise. And through Amazon Prime I download programs not available on cable or basic television stations.

With bigness comes inevitable vilification. From the Web news site Vox, here’s an article suggesting the time is ripe to cancel one’s Amazon Prime subscription (https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/the-goods/2018/11/26/18112769/amazon-prime-cancel).

Could I really give up watching the upcoming second season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? Or pay for shipping on all those purchases? And what would become of all those UPS and FedEx, not to mention USPS, delivery men and women who rely on Amazon to keep them on the road? 

On the one hand, the Vox article correctly notes Amazon’s history of “monopolistic practices to tax avoidance, poor treatment of both white- and blue-collar workers, union-busting, environmental damage, and most recently, the year-long publicity stunt of HQ2, a bad-faith ploy to extract private data from US cities that ended with Amazon plopping its supposedly economy-boosting offices into the two most established markets on the East Coast.”

On the other hand, the history of retailing, and for that matter almost every industry, is that market leaders are attacked. As Sears in its heyday was, and then Walmart was and still is, Amazon is scrutinized for practices that virtually all other retailers undertake in their own spheres. Target might emit a nicer aura in which to shop, but it treats its workers no better than Walmart, or Amazon. 

So I swallow any bile I might have toward Amazon and continue to log on. As long as I’m getting value for my dollar, I will continue to do so.

The third article presents in stark terms perhaps the penultimate consequence of society’s acceptance of the depreciating value of human labor. From Vox, here’s an article that asks, “Sex doll brothels are now a thing. What will happen to real-life sex workers?” (https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/26/18113019/sex-doll-brothels-legal-sex-work?_gl=1*13fjbq5*)

Returning to the opening quote taken from the sex doll article, here’s an added line to it: “Time and again, when confronted with the choice between convenience and affordability and the less tangible benefits of emotional intimacy, humans have opted for the former. There’s no reason to think that the sex industry will prove the exception to the rule.”

And to think, just a few short paragraphs ago I was worried about the future of truck drivers!

The Passing of a Corporate Gadfly

Among the tasks I assigned my staff and myself as editor and publisher of Chain Store Age was attending annual shareholders meetings of public retail companies. We would travel all over the country. To Minneapolis for Target, or as it was formerly known, Dayton Hudson. To Cincinnati for Federated Department Stores. To Bentonville, Ark., for Walmart. To Toronto for Campeau Corp., the real estate company that bought Federated and Allied Stores in an ill-fated attempt to marry shopping center ownership with department store companies. To Troy, Mich., for Kmart. Some retailers, like Woolworth and Sears, held meetings in different cities each year. So did J.C. Penney. 

During one of Penney’s meetings in New York in the late 1980s, attended by more than 500 shareholders, the highlight, or lowlight, depending on your point of view, was the shareholder question and answer period. 

(Now, if you never experienced an annual stockholders meeting, let me advise you they are mostly dry affairs. Corporate recitations of sales and earnings with a few pronouncements of new strategic initiatives. Sounds boring, and they are. My staff attended them because they often were the only time we had access to top executives as they usually held press conferences before or after the meeting). 

Most of the shareholders in the audience were current or retired company employees concerned their retirement pensions and benefits were not being jeopardized by mismanagement or profligate management.  

And then there were the corporate gadflies who challenged companies to be more transparent and democratic. Gadflies held stock in dozens if not hundreds of companies. They would criss-cross the country to pester executives with arcane, sometimes inane, inquiries. 

The most prominent of these stockholder gadflies were the Gilbert brothers and Evelyn Y. Davis. They did not like each other. At times they quarreled openly during meetings, the chairmen being unable to referee their repartee. 

I bring all this to your attention because Evelyn Y. Davis died Sunday. She was 89 (https://nyti.ms/2yYfr4h). She was unmistakeable. The New York Times obituary commented on her notable apparel. But it was her sharp Dutch-accented voice that impressed her presence on me, so much so that some 20 years later, while listening to but not watching a White House press conference, I was instantly drawn to the television when I heard her distinctive voice. 

Evelyn always got the microphone at corporate meetings. At the aforementioned Penney meeting she asked then chairman and CEO William Howell if the company was a fashion retailer. For sure, Howell replied. To which Evelyn wanted to know, why then did the wife of the vice president of merchandising wear a naugahyde dress to a recent fashion event? After the audience stopped laughing, Howell said he could offer no explanation. 

I haven’t been to an annual shareholders meeting in more than a dozen years. I am not aware if gadflies still exist to torment current chairmen. The Gilbert brothers are long gone as now so too is Evelyn Y. Davis. I’m glad I had the opportunity to witness them at the peak of their dedication to enlightened corporate governance. 

Passings in My Profession: 5 Killed at a Newspaper, the Sale of My Employer of 32 Years

I was touched by two events Thursday, one that made national headlines, the second another example of economic realities in today’s business environment. 

Both events involved my chosen profession, journalism. 

When news broke of the fatal shooting at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, my mind raced back 41 years. In early 1977 I turned down a job offer at the newspaper. I had left my newspaper job in New Haven in September 1976 to work as press secretary to a congressional candidate in a race both he and I knew he would lose. But the opportunity to leave The Register for “something” was too appealing to pass up. For two years management had frozen our salaries after the editorial staff voted in the Newspaper Guild. It was not easy living on $200 a week (as one of six bureau chiefs on a staff of 100 I was one of the better paid reporters. About a year later the union won a contract. Had I stayed I would have been paid about $450 a week). 

Once the congressional race ended as expected, I began searching for another newspaper job. The Gaston Gazette in Gastonia, NC, a suburb of Charlotte, offered $200 a week. After all, the editor reasoned, it was a lot cheaper to live in Gastonia than New Haven. When I demurred, he upped the offer to $250 a week and membership in a country club (I don’t think he knew I was Jewish). There was one catch, however. Instead of the two reporters he hoped to hire, for $250 a week he expected me to do the work of two staffers. Again, I resisted the call of the South.

My next possibility was a job at the Capital Gazette. Again, $200 a week. As my brother and his family lived some 50 miles away in Rockville, MD, Annapolis appealed to me. However, the state capital and home to the Naval Academy was a high priced community to live in. No way $200 a week was going to cut it.

A few weeks later I answered an ad in The New York Times from a trade publisher. I started at Lebhar-Friedman’s Nation’s Restaurant News March 14, 1977. A year later I transferred to Chain Store Age, a title that appeared on my business cards for the next 31 years. I retired in June 2009.

On Thursday, family-run Lebhar-Friedman, founded in 1925, was acquired by Chicago-based EnsembleIQ, a portfolio company of RFE Investment Partners, a private equity investor. At one time L-F had as many as 16 publications, half covering the retail industry, the rest healthcare, employing more than 500. At the time of the sale, only three books remained, Chain Store Age among them, as well as two CSA conferences, SPECS and X/SPECS dealing with store construction and facilities. The company employed fewer than 100. 

What happened? Consolidation of the retail industry at the same time more publications entered a shrinking field. These competitors were more nimble, with lower operating costs, allowing lower advertising rates. L-F always used internal funds to power growth. But an ill-timed, ill-advised acquisition into the healthcare field saddled L-F with heavy debt just when revenues toppled. The Internet sapped classified advertising while forcing investments that did not pay off. 

No need to elaborate any more causes. My bottom line: The 32 years I spent at Lebhar-Friedman as a staff editor, editor-in-chief and publisher afforded the opportunity to support my family and treat them to pleasures not experienced by many others. We travelled across the country and to distant lands. My children attended top schools. During the summer they went to camp or travel programs. Our home, I like to say, is the “house that Chain Store Age built.” 

Working on Chain Store Age from 1978 through 2009 enabled me to meet and at times befriend some of the most important retail luminaries of the last half century, including Sam Walton, Charles Lazarus and successive heads of Walmart, Sears, Kmart, JC Penney and many chains no longer around including TG&Y, Caldor, Zayre, Rose’s, Woolworth. Equally, if not more importantly, working at L-F introduced me to some great creative professionals. 

I am saddened by the loss of the Lebhar-Friedman nameplate. But I am comforted that Chain Store Age-SPECS-X/Specs will continue to provide, in the words of David Shanker, CEO of EnsembleIQ, “a comprehensive view of retail insights and information.”

Will Trump's End Justify His Means?

Maybe, just maybe, Donald Trump has a sense of history. After all, despite all his bravura claims about the efficiency and accomplishments of his presidency, he has yet to claim he has “made the trains run on time” (editor’s note—for those unfamiliar with the claim, google it. You’ll find it under Mussolini or Il Duce). 

Seriously, though, The Trumpster has added fuel to a long simmering debate: Does the end justify the means? 

Are his bluster, his arrogance, his indignities, his lying, his disdain for anyone not a Trump, just for show, to be ignored as long as he secures his objectives? Or, do all his character flaws impoverish the office of the president and the heritage of the United States as the beacon of the civilized world?

For Trump, for all of us, the bottom line, the “end,” is his presidency. When will it end? In January 2021? In January 2025? Or sometime before?  

America used to be known as a country where protagonists debated ideas. Trump has reduced politics to a contest of name calling powered by personal animosity and vengeance. 

Too many respected observers of our political landscape, including former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, have issued warnings about the Trump effect and the world’s and our possible slide into fascism for their misgivings to be ignored (your choice of sources: an Op-Ed piece by Albright in The New York Times: https://nyti.ms/2EpFn8F or or an interview with Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air https://www.npr.org/2018/04/03/599120190/madeleine-albright-warns-dont-let-fascism-go-unnoticed-until-its-too-late).

To keep our heads above a fascist tide requires perspective plus a knowledge of history, science and basic truths. In the extraordinary teenage response to the Parkland, FL, high school shooting, what should we make of the use of the #NeverAgain hashtag? As repulsive as the killing of 17 students and faculty at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was, does it compare to the six million Jewish deaths in the Holocaust often commemorated by the phrase Never Again? (http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Never-Again-From-a-Holocaust-phrase-to-a-universal-phrase-544666)

Let’s hope the new Never Again movement has more success than the last. Since first promulgated, the world has witnessed genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Syria, Chile, Argentina, Myanmar. Given the frequency of school shootings, I am not confident of more success. 

Perhaps the students, even the Jewish students among them, did not know of the Never Again association with the Holocaust. Chalk it up, if so, to the sad condition of American education. We’re seeing that sorry state play out in the teacher strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky. It is difficult to attract quality teachers for the poverty wages states pay.

When I started as a reporter in Connecticut back in 1972, my immediate supervisor resented teacher pay scales. He reasoned, as too many do even today, that teachers led cushy lives, that they had summers and holidays off, that their work day ended in the early afternoon, not realizing they spend evenings grading papers and preparing lesson plans. And that they often spend their own money to supplement the meager supplies they need to properly instruct their students.

Back then, teachers, like nurses, social workers, police and firemen, were thought to not need higher pay, that they received part of their remuneration in the positive feelings generated by their good works. Ha! Try paying your mortgage or your grocery bill with positive feelings!

Among the signs held up by a student at one of the Oklahoma teacher protests was one stating, “My textbooks are older than me.” Proper grammar would have taught him he should have written “than I,” but the sentiment was appropriate.

Our country’s history is full of less than noble chapters. Slavery. Near annihilation of Native Americans. Robber Barons. Jim Crow Laws. Segregation. Discriminatory laws against Irish, Italian, Jewish, Chinese immigration. Yes, we are a great country, but we must also keep in mind that dangerous precedents inhabited our past.

That’s why it is so important for our leaders to embrace the symbols of our diversity and greatness. Consider just two events of the past week. For the second straight year Trump chose not to attend a Passover seder at the White House. 

On the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Trump did not visit the monument to the slain civil rights leader a short distance from the White House. He merely tweeted a canned video praising King, but his unrehearsed comments of the last two years have exposed him as a bigot, a racist, a xenophobe and a sympathetic friend of budding, if not already, dictators around the world. 

“Instead of mobilizing international coalitions to take on world problems, he (Trump) touts the doctrine of ‘every nation for itself’ and has led America into isolated positions on trade, climate change and Middle East peace,” wrote Albright. “Instead of engaging in creative diplomacy, he has insulted United States neighbors and allies, walked away from key international agreements, mocked multilateral organizations and stripped the State Department of its resources and role. Instead of standing up for the values of a free society, Mr. Trump, with his oft-vented scorn for democracy’s building blocks, has strengthened the hands of dictators. No longer need they fear United States criticism regarding human rights or civil liberties. On the contrary, they can and do point to Mr. Trump’s own words to justify their repressive actions.”

Trump has used his bully pulpit, both in person and via Twitter, to harangue adversaries. His latest target is Amazon and its alleged sweetheart shipping deal with the U.S. Postal Service. Trump further claims Amazon is the reason many Main Streets across America have vacant storefronts (https://nyti.ms/2Gxtkfq).

Imagine that! Sen. Bernie Sanders agrees with Trump that Amazon is getting too big.

Amazon revenues last year totaled $178 billion. But what about Walmart? Its revenues reached $500 billion. Arguably, Walmart has done more to close down rival merchants than Amazon. To my knowledge Trump is not calling for a breakup of Walmart. Sanders, meanwhile, does criticize the Arkansas-based retailer for paying low wages to most of its associates.

Interestingly, while Trump bemoans the growing strength of Amazon he applauds the consolidation of local news outlets under the banner of the Sinclair Broadcast Group, a steadfast supporter of his views. If Sinclair receives approval to purchase Tribune Media it will have entry into seven out of 10 U.S. households. 

Trump also says Amazon should be required to collect state sales taxes to even the playing field with brick and mortar stores. He’s right, but Trump should be the last person to criticize anyone for not exceeding the requirements of the law. For its direct sales Amazon need only collect sales taxes in states where it has nexus. It is not required to collect sales taxes from sales made by its third party vendors. 

As are too many of our fellow citizens, Trump is under the impression that America owes its greatness to settlement by Western Europeans. He fails to recognize the contributions of Hispanics and Africans to our culture and economic growth. He scapegoats them in appeals to white nationalists and those who live in fear of imminent poverty or financial dislocation because America has shifted first from an agricultural economy to one dominated by manufacturing and now to a service-oriented platform.

Trump promises a return to greatness without ever spelling out the time period he wants to return to. His roadmap to wherever and whenever presumes America needs no partners other than on Trump’s terms. 

Will we be willing fellow travelers? Trump wants to get reelected. So do congressional Republican majorities who have mostly sublimated their constitutional obligations in favor of coattail election politics. 

It’s the people, however, who will determine—even in heavily gerrymandered districts—if democratic values will outweigh a strong man’s bombastic rule and attack on  cherished norms of society and politics. 

From Proudest Moment to Saddest, the Saga of Toys "R" Us Founder Charles Lazarus

With the liquidation bankruptcy filing of Toys “R” Us, the era of the category killer store may be said to be over. Toys “R” Us was the original category killer chain that overwhelmed small specialty and large general merchandise stores by offering a supermarket-style presentation of wide and deep assortments of sharply priced category specific merchandise. 

To be sure, a few category killers remain—Best Buy, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Bed Bath & Beyond, and even the struggling Barnes & Noble, to name several. But the graveyard list of category killers is much larger. An incomplete list would include Child World, Lionel Leisure, KB Toys, Circuit City, Crazy Eddie, Sports Authority, Oshman’s Sporting Goods, Linens ’n Things.

When Toys “R” Us began in 1948, if you wanted toys, or an appliance or housewares item—virtually anything—you would go downtown to a department store. There were no suburban department stores back then. There were no suburban shopping centers. 

Charles Lazarus used $4,000 to transform his father’s Washington, DC, bicycle shop into a juvenile furniture store. After customers kept asking for toys, Lazarus quickly evolved his merchandise mix to focus on toys. 

He believed staunchly in regimental uniformity. All business decisions–which products to carry, merchandising and store layout–emanated from headquarters. “I should be able to close my eyes and walk 130 feet and put my hand down and touch the very same stack of items in each store. If not, there’s something wrong,” he used to say. 

Lazarus was an early believer in the power of point of sale data. He partnered with suppliers, accepting early inventory deliveries and sharing sales data in return for discounts and assurances that Toys “R” Us would be kept in stock on the most wanted toys. The chain’s wide and deep inventory position became a strategic advantage when desperate parents and grandparents scavenged for the most wanted present during the holiday season. In stock leadership, not price, cemented the company’s position as the go-to retailer for toys. 

This advantage started to dissipate in the late 1980s as Walmart and Target refined their POS data systems. They concentrated on the hottest toys, selling them at discounted prices. They had more stores than Toys “R” Us. Shoppers visited them more often. They siphoned off sales in buckets, not drips and drabs. 

If you needed a specific toy, the place to go no longer was Toys “R” Us. In the age of the Internet, you searched on line, Amazon most likely.

With the advent of electronic games, computers and hand-held devices, traditional toys began losing their cache among children. Toys “R” Us added video games to its assortment, but one didn’t need to visit a store to upload apps to a hand-held device.

The real dagger to the heart of Toys “R” Us and other retailers, however, has been the greedy tentacles of private equity fund managers. They swooped in to ostensibly rescue retailers, offering cash secured against a retailer’s real estate. Some merchants had lagged because they could not compete against more streamlined, better financed competitors. Some were unable to cope with changing market conditions. Some just had inadequate management. It mattered not to the equity funds. They reaped their profits upfront from the leveraged buyout transaction, from interest payments on the debt it provided and, hopefully, from taking a retailer public if its profitability improved. 

Ever since Charles Lazarus retired from his creation in 1994, Toys “R” Us has lacked an energetic, bold merchant at the helm. Profits lagged. The equity funds offered money. But at a highly leveraged  price. Executives with no proprietary interest in a company, other than to maximize their personal returns, usually succumb to the siren song of a deep-pocketed equity fund. Bain Capital and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, along with Vornado Realty Trust, loaded Toys “R” Us with $5 billion in debt in a 2005 leveraged buyout. 

The downward sales spiral kept Toys “R” Us from paying off the debt and, ominously, from upgrading its stores and systems. All that’s left now is to sell off its real estate. 

Charles Lazarus is now 94. The last time I saw him was about 15 years ago as I was leaving work. He was window shopping a store located on the ground floor level of the Park Avenue office building housing Chain Store Age. We exchanged pleasantries but even then, a decade removed from active Toys “R” Us management, he resisted talking about the company he founded. 

He always was a reluctant interview (see http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2017/09/toys-r-us-bankruptcy-brings-back.html). I cannot imagine what must now be gripping his emotions. 

His proudest moment, he used to say, was paying off the creditor debt Toys “R” Us assumed when its then-parent company, Interstate Stores, dragged it into Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in 1974. Other Chapter 11 filings have occurred, none under his watch. 

On Thursday, management filed for Chapter 7 liquidation. The same market forces that will silence Lazarus’ once ubiquitous airwaves jingle—“I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a Toys “R” Us kid …,”—are sure to wreak havoc among remaining category killer stores. For some, if not all, it is just a matter of time before they share a similar fate.  

Lessons From Tariffs, Import Quotas and Walmart

Let the trade wars begin.

In an effort to resuscitate American industry, Donald Trump launched the first salvo Thursday in what may become a global trade war by imposing a 25% tariff on imported steel alongside a 10% tariff on imported aluminum. How the world will react, and if Trump has a counter-counterattack, remains unclear at this time.

It is not the first time America has sought to level off its unbalanced trade, particularly with China and other countries that flood—some would say, dump—cheaper alternatives to domestic U.S. production. In a global economy, manufacturers seek out the least expensive raw materials, labor and finished products. Too often, that means consumers at home and abroad think American made goods are overpriced. 

Heck, relocating supply lines has long been practiced by American industry. Textile companies fled the North to establish plants down South where non unionized workers earned less than their northern counterparts. But even lower southern wages could not compete with foreign laborers in Latin America and Asia. Executives fluent in global sourcing minutia shifted manufacturing from country to country to stay below import quotas established by the American government.

Trump champions America First, so it is not surprising he would favor steel and aluminum tariffs, particularly since underutilized plants are mostly located in Rust Belt states Trump won in 2016 and needs to win in 2020—Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin. It seemingly does not bother Trump that prices of many goods that include steel and aluminum components will rise and could cost more jobs in related industries than would be created by the metal makers.

Trump, who spoke out against Chinese dumping practices years before his presidential run, was not the first business titan to see the danger of a depleted American manufacturing base. Back in 1985, Sam Walton positioned Walmart as an advocate of “Buy America.” 

I went to the source—my bound copies of Chain Store Age—to review how the retail industry and I reacted to import quotas and to Mr. Sam’s defensive ploy to combat a growing criticism of his company, at $6.5 billion, the seventh largest general merchandise chain, a little less than a third the size of $21.7 billion Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Kmart’s $21.1 billion. (Today, Walmart is the largest retailer in the world with sales of $485.9 billion in the recently concluded fiscal year. Sears and its now-sister company Kmart have a combined volume of less than $17 billion). 

Not surprisingly, retailers, who normally supported Reagan administration policies, railed against quotas. Under the headline, “Protectionism: Policies leave chains vulnerable,” CSA reported in September 1984 that tighter import quotas fueled dramatic price increases in many merchandise categories. Kmart, for example, estimated the cost of goods from China increased 25%. 

Fast forward to Trump’s imposition of tariffs and the reaction is no less muted. Thursday, National Retail Federation president and CEO Matthew Shay said, “A tariff is a tax, plain and simple. In this case, it’s an unnecessary tax on every American family and a self-inflicted wound on the nation’s economy. Consumers are just beginning to see more money in their paychecks following tax reform, but those gains will soon be offset by higher prices for products ranging from canned goods to cars to electronics.

“The retail industry is extremely concerned by the administration’s apparent desire to ignite a trade war, where the net losers will be the very people the president wants to help. On top of steel and aluminum tariffs, retailers are troubled by the direction of the ongoing NAFTA negotiations and the threat of additional tariffs on consumer goods from China. The true greatness of America cannot be realized when we build walls blocking the free flow of commerce in today’s global economy.”

Importing helped catapult the Bentonville, Ark.-based company into a global powerhouse. To be sure, few if any of Walmart’s competitors disdained importing. But Walmart’s heralded logistical and technological efficiencies accelerated its growth.

When Sam Walton started speaking publicly about imported goods in August 1984, his company was a burgeoning juggernaut but still not near the size of Sears and Kmart. He framed the challenge as dual pronged—reduce the trade deficit by buying American made products, but if that is not possible, develop products and jobs in Mexico, Central America and South America to “improve the standard of living for the average citizen in Central and South America.” 

Within a year Walton launched a “Buy America” program. Skeptics abounded. The program persisted, but in December 1992, five months after Walton died, NBC Dateline confronted company CEO David Glass with allegations products marketed as Made in America really were imported from Bangladesh. The adverse publicity led to the program’s demise.

Several years ago, Walmart started a Made in America program. It proudly touts a claim that “two-thirds of what Walmart spends on products sold in U.S. stores is made, sourced, assembled or grown within the USA.” That is “according to our suppliers,” Walmart acknowledges.

That provides a wide definition of American made. (Sales last year in domestic Walmart stores and Sam’s Clubs totaled $365.2 billion.) It cannot be argued that Walmart’s expansion and buying practices did not gut many a small town of local retailing and small malls, as well as contribute to the closing of many domestic manufacturing plants supplanted by foreign suppliers. 

But it is equally indisputable that shopping at Walmart has stretched consumer dollars and helped keep inflation in check.

It’s too soon to say what lasting impact Trump’s tariffs will have on sales, on inflation, on employment. But it’s safe to say they will not markedly change our balance of trade with the rest of the world.