zyzzle

Please clairify. Not sure what you meant to say. I think you're implying that owning "stuff" isn't cool anymore and that the Millennial generation / economic trend is not selling or buying "stuff" but selling and buying (expensive) "experiences" like water parks or trampoline parks. But, we had Raging Waters back in the day -- and it was fun (and only around $10 per day) -- and it coexisted just fine with Sears, Wards, Penneys, and all the shopping malls.

If "stuff" isn't cool any more, why does the friggin LCD Popeye game that I played as a kid -- purchased at Sears! now sell for $400 on Ebay, and why do people pay it? More to the point, why aren't companies capitalizing more on this disturbing and egregrious trends in "retro" stuff??

The point I was trying to make is that apparently malls aren't "sophisticated" enough for today's trendy, capricious convenience-fueled younger suburban shopping demographic. They need and want highly expensive (and profitable for the businesses) intangible things like a day at a waterpark, concert, other type of "cool" and "hip" things. Buying stuff is retro, uncool, and to be discouraged.

I guess an Indoor amusement park makes more sense now than it did in Old Chicago's day -- They were 40 years too early on that scene.

And, the last time I shopped at a Sears was more than 20 years ago.

Josh-da-man

I think the “millennial” generation is faced with increased housing costs and smaller living spaces. They also tend to move more often, and this don’t want a bunch of stuff to lug around from tiny apartment to tiny apartment. Which is why don’t want as many clothes or books or records or sets of dishes than their parents.

As for that $400 Popeye game, that, I can almost guarantee, was sold to someone 40-50 years old. Lots of toys from the 70s and 80s sell for crazy amounts on eBay. Generation X nostalgia. Most of those games probably got tossed out or lost when kids upgraded to Nintendo a few years later.

Troy Stiffler

That. My generation (older millennial) bought stuff and subsidized the odds and ends to credit cards. Younger people are virtually 100% gridlocked by student debt and that one vacation they took when they were 25.

I remember the kind of credit you could get in the early 2000s. Right up to the 2008 collapse. That consumer credit simply doesn’t exist anymore.

I feel like I was at the tail end of people who were okay with spending a bunch of money on stuff we don’t need.

fujishig

I dunno. Maybe many consider a smart phone a necessity, but the number of young people with expensive smartphones seems pretty high.

Noonan

That's only because they're being paid off monthly with the phone bill. If you had to pay full price at purchase, you'd see a lot more budget phones for sale and being used.

DVD Polizei

Talk about shooting a dead horse about a 1,000 times.

Sears, get it done, already.

Bluelitespecial

Eddie Lampert's hedge fund ESL submitted the $4.4 billion bid for the auction of Sears assests. It also has in interest to submit a $1.8 billion bid for the Sears Real Estate if their first bid fails.

https://therealdeal.com/2019/01/02/s...ion-bid-fails/

Brian T

At a mall in Michigan I've visited regularly visited for several decades when I cross the border, the Sears closed about a year ago. At one point, a portion of it was the temporary home to what looked like a traveling animatronic dinosaur museum/exhibit (!). Pretty low rent, and the people running it seemed rather carny-ish, but hey, it's a job. This particular mall had FIVE anchor department stores in its prime just a few years ago: Sears, Macy's, Younkers (later Carson's), JCP and Target. Now it's just those last two, and I keep reading dire things about JCP. All of this points to the likelihood of this sizeable shopping hub becoming yet another Dead Mall down the road. In the past, this kind of thing was cyclical, especially when Big Box stores killed off many malls a couple decades back and forced the survivors to become upscale "destinations" to survive, but I'm not so sure there's another cycle left in the concept.

For those who really wanna feel wistful for this dying era, and maybe a little creeped out: Dead Malls Youtube Channel

The rest of this post is possibly a little off-topic, so feel free to skip it if you prefer to stick to the subject of Sears.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I'm sure these books have been mentioned elsewhere around this forum (maybe that "Landlord's on my case" thread??) as they're not exactly new (well, new-ish), but they're seriously recommended reading for those who've become unwitting slaves to possessions, or closets and basements full of "stuff", and apparently economists find much to admire in the whole movement:

by Marie Kondo (2014)

by Fumio Sasaki (2017)

The first one's the undisputed heavyweight in its category; the second is just one of the more personally-useful recent takes on the same theme: getting rid of stuff. I'd been unwittingly moving in this direction for years -- but ever so slowly -- when I stumbled across these books via articles online and some friends who mentioned one of them, and now I'm even more resolved to unload, streamline, whatever. It's not as easy as you'd think, especially when you're a lifelong "collector" like so many of us here, but I'm forever thankful now, in my early middle age, that I only have to declutter a spacious one-bedroom apartment. My goal of late has been to drop off items to the local charity centre every week or so, whether it's just a grocery bag with a handful of things inside, or a big box I can barely lift. As much as it may have disappointed some folks in my life that I never fell into the status quo trap of a house in the burbs with that much more space to fill with crap, I can't imagine the migranes that accompany any attempt at downsizing or decluttering in those circumstances.

Millennials, in a sense, are lucky that a lot of them, if they're smart, won't end up in a situation where they'll need to "minimalize" or whatever. I think Gen-X'ers were the first generation wherein a decent sized segment was able to resist the status quo, possibly paving the way for Millennials to embrace it more fully, if they choose to do so. They/we may take flack for pursuing "experiences" -- not all of which need to be expensive, not by a long shot, especially if they live in bigger cities where there's many to be enjoyed and new ones always popping up -- but they're not wrong.

Why So Blu?

Yeah, been recommending Goodbye, Things for months over in the Landlord thread. Glad you're getting good use out of it.

Brian T

Useful for many folks, I'm sure -- moreso for difficult cases like "Alan" in that other thread -- although that particular author goes further than I ever could. He basically eliminates everything except a few (very) basic fundamentals, but who knows, maybe long term I'll see the value of going all in like he did. My most useful personal takeaway has been to take (and back up) pictures of everything I get rid of, for nostalgic or other reasons. Very handy.

zyzzle

If you're going so far as to eliminate everything except a few fundamentals, I would suggest that living in the USA is not for you. Join the millions on pilgrimage to India, China, or Nepal and find your "guru" to live a life of Asceticism, steeped in the Eastern traditions.

I'm in the middle, in fact I deny myself "stuff" and a lot of "first-world" nonsense convenience things, because I don't want to support all these greedy, capitalistic companies.

But, ask me to do without my vast library of books, or movies and I'll never yield!!

I also say that a home is man's castle, and it should have a *lived-in* look, and not look like an office building, museum, or minimalist nightmare. So, some stuff is GOOD.

Bluelitespecial

Eddie Lampert's bid will more than likely come up short. A decision should be made by Tuesday and if it fails Sears will be liquidated.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/07/sear...esday-fix.html

Bluelitespecial

Sears to ask bankruptcy judge to approve its plan to liquidate.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-s...-idUSKCN1P218J

Bluelitespecial

Well, Sears is now considerating a revised bid from Eddie Lampert's Hedge fund company. The catch is that he has to raise $120 million in cash by tomorrow.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/08/busin...lay/index.html

thetao

Does any of this affect K-Mart?

Bluelitespecial

If Sears liquidates so will Kmart.

thetao

Okay. I wasn't sure if there might be some accounting arrangement that could (temporarily?) save K-Mart. That's gonna be a lot of vacant real estate.

And thanks for the play-by-play, BTW.

Bluelitespecial

Eddie Lampert upped his bid to $5 billion dollars, the auction for all of Sears assets will be on Monday. The bid will go up against Sears creditors.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-s...-idUSKCN1P41TJ

Abob Teff

OK, admittedly I have not followed the Sears saga in much detail ...

So, the guy is the chairman and CEO ... and he just happens to become both their biggest creditor AND their biggest shareholder ... and other companies he is involved with have loaned money to Sears ... and other creditors want to sue him over "past deals" he has done with the company ...

Is this shady as f*** or does it just sound that way?

Bluelitespecial

I only have an interest because I'm a former employee. I'm not a big business guy, but I'll try my best to explain it. Eddie Lampert merged both Sears and Kmart in 2005, and he became CEO. Sears Holding Corporation hasn't turned a profit since 2010. It's been widely believed Eddie Lampert never wanted to save Sears, he only has a vested interest for the real estate. With the upcoming auction his $5 billion dollar bid is up against the creditors who want to liquidate the company to pay off Sears total debt. I think I explained it right.

thetao

But if Lampert succeeds, I assume Sears and K-Mart are still going under? Or will he be choosy in which real estate he sells/develops? Does anybody know why he wants the real estate?

Bluelitespecial

Well the bankruptcy auction was supposed to happen yesterday. I can't seem to find any news about what happened.

BobO'Link

Here ya go:

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/1...-eddie-lampert

"The company's chairman and largest shareholder, Eddie Lampert, won a bankruptcy auction for Sears, averting liquidation of the iconic chain, according to a source familiar with the negotiations."

PhantomStranger

That is a good explanation of what's happened. Finance people don't believe that Lampert was managing the chains to keep them alive. He's a metaphorical monetary vampire that has been feeding off their corpses for over a decade. He now wants to resurrect them from the dead for his own gain.

fujishig

A similar (but not exact) thing happened with TRU, where they were just loaded with debt and sent out to fail. I'm surprised there isn't bigger outrage over this kind of crap.