Our friend Fast Eddie Lampert has signaled game over for Sears. By bringing in a bankruptcy advisor, reportedly stopping paying vendors and indicating he is not going to pay the debt bill coming due next week it appears the Sears saga will come to its natural conclusion probably as early as next week.
Of course, that’s not exactly true. Lampert owns or has the rights to most of the best assets of Sears and no doubt has a plan to exploit them even further after any bankruptcy filing. The man has been ten steps ahead of everybody else on this entire thing and there’s no reason to believe he hasn’t thought this through to the next steps.
In the meantime, I did this piece on Forbes.com on the plight shared by Sears and Penney and the common denominator for the slide of both retailers. Spoiler alert: Gordon Gekko said it best.

Eddie Lambert is an awful man. I have worked for Kmart for 38 years. He has taken away our associate discount, we have received no raises since he merged the two companies. I cannot speak for the Sears associates they still receive an associate discount among other things. Even though he said we are the same company the Sears half are treated better. They received all new computer equipment we are dealing with ancient. Its sad to realize I gave this company everything for what?
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