Moments like this actually give me some hope. Perhaps younger generations will use this as an example of how corporate America is no ones friend. They don’t care about you as an employee, they don’t care about their customers, and they don’t care about politics unless it gives them an unbridled revenue stream. So much of what’s taught in B-schools is such a lot of malarky compared to real-world capitalism, which has nothing to do with the simple ideas of building a good product, containing your costs, etc. It’s all shenanigans and financial engineering, to the benefit of the few in power, where executives are replaced when they fall out of favor, rather than their obvious incompetence. As pointed out here, Sears could have been something akin to the juggernaut that is Amazon today - maybe even bigger. But that would have involved work, and greed always opts for cheap and fast.

So, you want a lesson kids? If you aren’t freelancing, building your own company, seeking ways to be part of the financial engineering games, then you are really just one paycheque away from being out on the street. I’d like to think that with enough recessions, with enough pump-and-dump, with enough scheming, that eventually enough people will decide to create their own businesses, and maybe we’ll see small businesses, small towns, and real capitalism reborn.