I have a policy of not going after fellow bloggers but when the column written is just so outrageous and fundamentally flawed, well, if you open the door...
Other who made the cut were:
Chuck Prince, formerly of Citigroup (C)
Ed Zander (MOT) of Motorola
Peter van Stolk of Jones Soda (JSDA)
Angelo Mozilo of Country Financial (CFC)
Kerry Killinger of Washington Mutual (WM)
Jimmy Cayne of Bear Stearns (BSC)
Scott Hartman, of subprime lender NovaStar (NFI)
Mesa Air's (MESA) Jonathan Ornstein
Phil Schoonover of Circuit City (CC)
Every one of the institutions is currently near crippled and more than two will be bankrupt soon. Three of the CEO's are gone with at least another 3 on the brink. Yet, somehow Lampert is worse?
Here is what this is. Those guys will make everyone's list this year BECAUSE THEY DESERVE IT. Herb, being the smart guy he is realized that he need to pick someone NOBODY else else would lest his pick just get caught up in the wash of the blogsphere and become irrelevant.
Enter Lampert, a guy who does not even hold the title Herbie gives to him. What is really ironic here is that Greenberg eliminates Zander, Prince and von Stolk who were so bad, they either are no longer employed or soon will be "because they are no longer CEO". Oh, so lets pick a guy who "never was CEO"? Herb, don't you think this is just a bit hypocritical, even for you?
What you have in Sears Holdings (SHLD) is the combination of two retailers that prior to Lampert's purchase we on the trash heap. Kmart was bankrupt was Sears was racing there as fast as it could get there. Now the combination throws off about a billion dollars a year for Lampert and unlike most of the above companies, is still very profitable. Not bad in only two and a half years, huh Herb?
Recently Sears has been caught in the retail environment like Macy's (M), Home Depot (HD), Lowe's (LOW) and JC Penny (JCP). If we look at the following 1 year chart, see anything familiar Herb?
The largest one year loser? The very JC Penny that Herb trumpets in his column...
You see Herb, Sears get 40% of revenues from appliances. Those are those big expensive things in you house that if people are not buying and remodeling homes these things go unsold. Since Sears is the #1 retailer with about 20% market share for them, logic would tell you the hit here would be far worse than the others. Right?
If folks are not going there for these things, they also do not pick up the ancillary item they buy when in the store. In a nutshell Herb, this is Sears problem. So, while we wait this out, Lampert is busy buying up shares by the truckload so that when housing turn around and yes it will Herb, Sears EPS will jump as people will resume buying these items again.
I am sure Lampert is somehow responsible for the housing crisis, after all if he isn't your entire article is, well, just bad journalism... Let's not make things up Herb.
To say Lampert is "the worst" at a job he does not even have and is worse than the list above justs show desperation on your part. Desperation for relevance in an arena once dominated by folks such as yourself, now owned by us all.
