ESL founder and Sears Chairman Eddie Lampert released his annual letter to shareholders yesterday, in which he unloaded a year’s worth of angst. First, the rating agencies. While Eddie understands that they sometimes err on the side of caution, he just doesn’t agree “with all of the critical qualitative conclusions.” Next, business leaders, regulators, public officials and journalists- they’re all the same. They “have become an echo chamber of self-support and self-congratulation, whether on TV, in print or at numerous conferences. Their words and their actions are often self-serving and they are typically regarded and reported on as if they were obvious and selfless.”
Eddie, who’s not just a piece of meat, also tells us that he reads. And he reads big, complicated books too. His latest one? Thomas Sowell’s Intellectuals and Society.
For those not familiar with his writings, Thomas Sowell is one of the clearest and most insightful writers of our era. I look forward to every book and column he publishes. In this book, he discusses the “vision of the anointed” and how their views shape society regardless of their merit. He describes how often these views conflict with reality without altering these views and, paradoxically, sometimes strengthening them. I couldn’t help noticing the parallels between his comments and the “vision of the anointed” in the financial and business world over the past few years.
Maybe time to form a book club with Bove?
Thomas Sowell=racist.
ESL sucks
@2 Hello, Sailor! When did they let you out?
I was recently released from Gitmo, due to the magic negro’s calculation that I might help in the upcoming mid-term elections.
bess- nothing on the Toyoda/ta hearings?
Govt owns GM a UAW company and skewers Toyota a non union company?
This smells like Paris Hilton after a sauna.
thomas sowell = bill cosby’s long lost brother
Markets & Minorities was a tremendous read
@5 who gives a fuck
@7 Not sure that is always the requirement to have a post here.
@5
Mr. Toyoda
Speaking before the Congress
So deepry sorry
@9
you want frip? turn over…
ESL: you’re a very successful hedge fund ceo, but you’ve done nothing to Sears but fuck it up.
It’s not my fault that Sears sucks ass. It’s the gosh darn gub’mint. How about some whine with that cheese.
kmart was in bankruptcy when he entered that. its up 9+x in the 7 years since it has emerged. sears was rummored to be going the same way when he started to accumulate it. if you are a shareholder of a company you should pray he comes along and f’s it up the same way. how many retail stocks have performed as well? how mnay of the 300k employees would still be employed if he hadn’t come along? if he had spent millions of $ per store on locations that wouldnt have given a good return on the $ the millions of shareholders and hundreds of thousands of employees would be far worse off.
kmart was in bankruptcy when he entered that. its up 9+x in the 7 years since it has emerged. sears was rummored to be going the same way when he started to accumulate it. if you are a shareholder of a company you should pray he comes along and f’s it up the same way. how many retail stocks have performed as well? how mnay of the 300k employees would still be employed if he hadn’t come along? if he had spent millions of $ per store on locations that wouldnt have given a good return on the $ the millions of shareholders and hundreds of thousands of employees would be far worse off.
@14
seriously, they’re never going to give you a trade, it’s not worth the effort