ILBaztardo
46660
2177
22
Apr 15, 2026 7:09 PM
ILBaztardo
46660
2177
22
rockmanx853000
Is this strategy more or less what happened to other major businesses that are no longer alone? Placing some jackoff CEO who doesn’t know anything about business but riding ways for make more money for themselves ultimately by bleeding the company dry?
jwillywill
https://imgur.com/2dH0uf5
Whitebeardthepirate
I've seen this damn comic so many times, the only follow up i want to see to justify how much i hate is it to see the people on the right grab the speaker, and start roasting him over that fire and eating him alive, while he screams about "my rights and privileges! don't you know how counterproductive this is?!"
FinancialRavioli
DontYouHateWhenAllUsernamesAreAlreadyTaken
There it is.
Elonth
I'm glad someone said the quite part out loud because I literally came to the comments section to.
Eyeetsass
This is the MAGA agenda for the entire country. Destroy everything nationalized, and privatize it just like this story. To liquidate a nation. To rule a Spirit Halloween.
flatlandr480
Sounds like what the fat ass orange pedophile POS in the oval office is doing to this cointry.
RigidGristle
That’s how Mitt Romney made his fortune
petieSpacePoster
Mitt Romney killed Jeffery the Giraffe and wore his skin as a coat. (Toys R Us reference for you Gen Z's. It was a physical toy store that was like if the toy section of Walmart was a toystore the size of a Walmart.)
pancakesinthesky
Still somehow exists in Canada. Found that out very recently.
Comet260
He also said that Corporations are people.
DangerBaer
TIL mitt rMoney murders people.
nobletrex
Same story with red lobster and toysrus.
2sheepstothewind
And KB Toys
manystripes
When they talk about running the government like a business, this is what they mean
Camelspotting
I've never heard someone say this who didn't also hate their management. Go figure.
Grimmrog
This is what they do, at least in the white house.
eromitlab
Private equity ruins everything.
ATDWorks
Yep. I’m in IT working for one, and for the last 2 years since PE purchased it’s been run into the ground, while stacking on companies at an alarming rate (~6/yr). Whether it succeeds or fails, the guys at the top profit. The losers are the burnt out employees and the clients locked into multi-year contracts.
I have a meeting scheduled tomorrow to hopefully accept a new job
shammael
The only reason I know you are not an ex-colleague is that the company I used to work for was bought 5 years ago and I left shortly after that. Same issues, same exact situation.
Best of luck tomorrow, friend!
ATDWorks
Got the job
AllegedlyUncleTonton
Congrats, stranger
petieSpacePoster
CONGRATS!!!! Nothing feels quite like escaping a psychological nightmare job like that. I got out of mine last June. I am young enough I have to get another job but I'm taking time to figure out what I might like doing better than IT before I try to go back to work.
ATDWorks
Good luck to you! I once met a farmer that used to be in IT- left the career to buy a plot with a spring and farm pumpkins and stuff.. I think about him a lot haha. IT is fun and pays well, but I think the long term play is to get out with your sanity and setup a side hustle
KR1570F
ThanosDei
https://media2.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTY1YjkxZmJleHVsM3I5eWdmd3FjNmIwc3FrMGd0cm5hdHJnbmtkdHE2cXhyeGEyZiZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/XBoYoCVQNBpJe/200w.mp4
NorrinxRadd
I fuckin loved my local sears, I knew all 7 people in the tool section, they were always great to deal with, all my tools can't be replaced now because the craftsman name isn't what it was. I've told my son about how amazing it was, but nothing will be the same
cowgoesmoo1
All through the 60s and 70s, my dad would brag about his Craftsmen tools. "If one ever breaks? I walk into Sears, drop off the broken one and walk out with a new one." He had high praise for Kenmore appliances too. By the 1990s? He wasn't bragging anymore.
NorrinxRadd
Until about 2009 I would hand over a broken tool, and be handed a new one, or rebuilt. Our kenmore fridge in 06/07 lasted a full 14 months. However my 1987 ⅜ ratchet is still perfect in almost every way. I will say harbor freight (hand tools only I haven't enough experience outside of that) are craftsman quality
andwings2go
Mitt Romney did the same thing to Kay-Bee toys.
TheDarknessInTheHeartsOfMen
He also tried to do it to Staples
Calicious
Command+F, replace all "Lampert" = "Trump", "SEARS" = "USA", Return.
KAPTKipper
The new age of the robber barons.
Hyzenthlay021
I haven't had a chance to use this in a long time
raynorraider
what movie is this?
Hyzenthlay021
Other People's Money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_People%27s_Money I thought it was fantastic, but it's definitely a love it or hate it movie.
Bystandr
Yep. He saw himself a revolutionary like Jack Welch (the guys that started GEs' decline) without observing that Jack pretty much set the
Bystandr
ground for GEs' destruction. Theres a few great documentaries on that, by the way.
welluhwhatdoyouwantmetosay
Vulture Capitalists
eternaldragon6661
this is why big expensive buildings get set on fire
JayDeeDubs
Not dissimilar to what happened with Toys R us in the US, or Red Lobster, or I'm sure a bunch of other companies that aren't quite as famous
gablestout
Toys R Us killed itself from it's own mismanagement, not intentional dismantlement. Stores that used to have areas to play with and engage with toys replaced those areas with narrower isles, more stock...Last few times I would go there it didn't feel like Toys R Us. Why go the box store when the box is no different than ordering from Amazon. They pivoted in the wrong direction.
JayDeeDubs
No. It was bought by venture capital, saddled with the debt they borrowed to make that purchase, then needed to service hundreds of millions in debt in addition to running a profitable business. The best of managed toy companies couldn't afford to do that. Stories of mismanagement are essentially a smokescreen for this kind of destructive acquisition. "All you can eat shrimp/crab killed red lobster" is similar.
gablestout
KKR, Bain Capital, and Vornado Realty Trust lost a significant amount of money on their investment in Toys "R" Us. Yes, the strategy of using debt to finance the buyout, combined with failure to adapt to the retail landscape, led to its downfall. Mismanagement.
Bear in mind, Toys R Us was already losing ground to competitors. The age of the specialty big box stores was ending. The ones that couldn't crack the code on e-commerce died.
JayDeeDubs
When there is no management that could make that level of debt service profitable, management isn't the problem. Without that debt, Toys R us may have been able to adapt or pivot; with it they were sunk.
Sechran
Most "restaurant" businesses are now actually in real estate - the actual restaurant is incidental.
That's why so many restaurants which used to have flavorful interiors and exteriors are now generic interchangeable glop that could have been generated by an AI with the prompt "every restaurant" - if they have/want to sell the building, a less distinctive offering pulls in more potential buyers.
darbythemiddle
Bright Sun Films (youtube channel) makes a lot of videos about bankrupt companies, and 90% of them are because of the shady practices of private ventures buying it up, saddling it with debt, paying themselves rent, etc etc. They buy a prize stud that's slightly beyond its prime, slaughter it and feast on its flesh. In 5 minutes, they're hungry for the next stud.
jintoabriel
Radio Shack, imagine if they were alive in the Maker and 3d printer age.
Camelspotting
I had both a radio shack (somehow) and an independent electronics store within a few minutes of my engineering school 2015ish. By the time I graduated they had both closed. It's just really difficult to make money selling $2 capacitors that are ¢30 on ebay. The only place I see hobby electronics/maker stuff is micro center and that's there to complement the big ticket items.
JinxRocks
Western Auto, A&P, CompUSA, and untold others. Too many to remember. Just.. fading away.
Filanwizard
Sears could have been Amazon if it had real management. They already had the 100 years of offline order from home experience.
bottledham
You could buy an entire house from the Sears catalog.
AmZero85
My grandma often told me how her childhood home was delivered by train from the Sears Catalog. That was 100 years ago.
Vidikron
Always thought blockbuster would be a competitor to Netflix. Think they even had the opportunity to buy Netflix. USPS would have made a killing had it offered email accounts back in the 90's.
CarlBassett
You want to know something crazy? Sears OWNED an ISP! They can't claim they didn't know about the internet. They owned their own ISP! They literally could have paid a kid to build a website, put the catalog online and watch the orders come in. They already had the stock, the warehouses, the distribution, the trucks and the drivers.
petieSpacePoster
See also what killed Radio Shack (I mean killed it before the PE vultures did)
thewiggins
All they had to do was put the catalog online. They had the products, shipping, and distribution handled. Even if the storefronts needed to shrink or close, half of the store was warehouse anyways, they just needed a pickup area or to hire more delivery drivers.
cowgoesmoo1
I did a boat tour of the Chicago River a few years and saw an enormous (and empty) Sears warehouse. The infrastructure was there all along.
Filanwizard
The stores could even have been leveraged. People living in apartments and condos or areas of high potential for porch piracy? Ship to your local Sears. Something they already had possible with the catalog department in every store.
cytherians
I postulated that with some friends who were in the retail business, back in the early 2000's. Amazon was really pumping up at that point. Why didn't Sears step into this, with a tremendous infrastructure?
The general sentiment was... building online would cut into brick & mortar profits. Plus, now with this revelation, Lampert had no interest in investing in growth... only fleecing.
CannonFolder
The crazy thing with that though, is there were places where the only "brick and mortar" Sears had was a pickup point for whatever you had ordered from the catalog. I grew up in one of those places, didn't know they had actual stores until after the decline had already started. I've felt their mail order business was always the true driver of business growth, but their need to be in physical stores was a pride thing.
Rijacki
I lived in one of those locations, too, in the 70s. Going to primarily ordering online in pre-pandemic felt a lot like that since we would pick up at a mail box. Sears started as mail-order with few stores in big cities. Their primary sales for decades was via catalogue.
varesya
Failure of imagination was definitely an aspect. But guys like Lampert accelerate the decline because they're profiting from it. They're trying to extract any money they can, and they don't care if all that's left after is a desiccated husk, because they made money off of sucking it dry.
floatationman
The real question is why didn't the board put a stop to it? As soon as he wanted to sell off the real estate to an entity he owned, that guy should have been booted out on his behind. Hindsight is 20/20, but the board that is supposed to oversee the CEO was also negligent (at best).
CrimsonPermanentAssurance
They were in on the con. Not enough pay packages put enough emphasis on long term performance. They all want immediate stock gains. A side effect of slashing capital gains taxes
floatationman
I agree on all counts. Any executive bonus structure should have a portion (the majority IMHO) of the funds put into multi-year escrow with metrics that focus on 5 year gains over annual gains. Quarterly bonuses should be off the table.
ontarioOT
Took the blueprint from Jack Welch (General Electric) and somehow made it worse.
Comet260
FUCK JACK WELCH.
Kalli
That fun part about selling the buildings they owned to his hedge fund then charging exorbitant rents? Look at how many have done that to hospitals. Capitalist vermin are ripping the copper out of the walls and need to be exterminated
TooSoonOldTooLateSmart
Steward Health Care did it.
Californiajackson
I LOVED Sears because, at one time they actually listened to customers. I once wrote to Sears catalogue describbing the perfect women's summer shirt: 2 breast pockets (not 1) so you could wear it braless in the heat; a colour selection that included all colour seasons (not all saturated or all pastels that don't suit everyone); princess seaming etc. etc. The next year they had it! And I felt TERRIBLE returning mine because they made them too short for tummy camouflage, which I hadn't mentioned.
LunarSol357
This is also what happened to Toys R Us and several others.
jt42
Not sure this in tongue in cheek (you mean Eddie killed those to?), but the list of companies that have died or struggling post-internet is pretty dang long.
TheFastpaws
No, he means the people who bought them did the exact same things. They killed it on purpose.
davebarton315101
Isn’t this the final plan for America?
mel2000
No. Fortunately Americans can do a political reset with their votes, after they wake up.
W15hvern
Gonna take more than one or two elections with a democrat sweep to even start course correcting.
cowgoesmoo1
I'd say that plan has been implemented and is in full swing.
Garwoodxx
Every billionaire’s wealth came from extracting the money, time and energy from regular people. (Time and energy are their lives. The billionaires are feeding off of everyone else. Parasites.)
Aimlockbelch
Not “every”. I actually knew a billionaire who made his money negotiating licensing deals. He setup Lucasfilm’s licensing to Viacom so Star Wars movies could be played on cable TV. He never exploited anyone. He was just a brilliant businessman. Virtually every other billionaire can die in a fire!
pixelsnader
Yes, but even then there are layers. All billionaires exploit to get wealth. Many billionaires cheat and steal wealth. But some actively destroy shit to capture a fracture of the value.
pixelsnader
It's like stealing a wallet, versus breaking a car window to steal a wallet. Sure, theft is bad, but you could argue it's roughly a zero sum game. But breaking a window makes it a negative sum game.
PicassoCT
That makes it sound like they do that themselves. But the money does it for them. They could die, shrivel up and the moneygolem with the bunkercorpse would go on
SaturnineCult
Have you noticed they're now sucking everyone dry more and more? Like they know some sort of crash is coming soon.
BumbleDee128
‘The End of Growth’ there is a great paper and a graph and everything!
HandoB4Javert
...even those in charge of a country...
AllegedlyUncleTonton
Don't be sad. Be angry. And direct that anger towards something constructive.
UnprunedSynapses
I feel like this is kind of what all abusers do: exploit, take, drain, threaten, destabilize, destroy. All for the self.
PicassoCT
Imperialism on the human scale. Keep the lights on by turning them of somewhere else. Why empires can not grasp the fact that two together can grow. Rather conquer the other and have less in the world in the end.
livingonagiantfireball
And because people are so afraid of being a Luigi, they rather keeping their head down on the train going offtrack.
AwashiMaster11
True it's the Parasite class
WebMaka
And now it's apparently become the Epstein class. Not only do they exploit for wealth, they moved over to exploitation for pleasure as well.
Sticklebrickk
A successful business is built by many different people growing together, helping each other achieve a goal.
A "successful" person is built by taking advantage of those around them, then using them as stepping stones to achieve their own goal. (Usually, sadly, cold hard cash.)
onlymostofthetime
the same thing happened to red lobster
QuartzPoker
Except Bruce Wayne, he was just born with a silver spoon. Makes you wonder what his parents did and why they were killed, though.
PicassoCT
Clutches pearls.
eetsumkaus
not really. I imagine the vast majority of a billionaire's wealth came from people overvaluing their assets because they said so. There's a lot of shenanigans around asset valuations and it all culminates in people being "worth" billions of dollars, which allows them in turn to hoard more wealth. But the vast majority of billionaires will not get billions of dollars from selling everything they own.
TheOldSchoolisBack
Meh, Lampert’s an asshole no doubt, but he didn’t strip Sears and run away with the loot. He lost billions on Sears. Not enough to put him in the poor house unfortunately, but it’s not like he was the big winner here.
TheRealArclight
reading comprehension....is like a god damn superpower.
TheOldSchoolisBack
So is critical thinking. Especially the ability to critique narratives that agree with your worldview just as much you do those that disagree.
TheRealArclight
reading comprehension....is like a god damn superpower.
Jarjarthejedi
[citation comically much needed]
Itry2dostuff
Just a billionaire sure not a winner🙄
TheOldSchoolisBack
He was a much larger billionaire before he was stupid enough to buy Sears. I ain’t defending the guy, or billionaires in general, but I will always defend facts. Downvote all you want, but this post is fox news quality rage bait.
GreatHair
did you read the part where it describes how the purchase comes after making millions ripping then off?
TheOldSchoolisBack
He lent the company billions, and when it went bankrupt, he got the rest of the equity in return. That equity turned out to be worth a fraction of what he lent. His acquisition and mismanagement of Sears is taught as a case study in hubris, among other things.
It is not a case study in how to the strip a company of its assets and leave other people holding the tab, which vulture capital knows how to do all to well. If that was his goal, he failed miserably.
Rhythmaster
It is a bit odd that after all this aggressive dismantling he is worth 1.1 billion only.. like, for the amount of destruction and harm to everyone involves, he is just barely a billionaire?? And he had a lot of money before that... what a waste
TheOldSchoolisBack
That’s my point. Sears was a decade long failure for him. The post reads like he systematically stripped the place for his personal gain. He’s an asshole with a ridiculous ego, but the last years of Sears was him trying to recover what he could from something already on its deathbed. And it would have closed years earlier had he not been foolish enough to dump money into it.
PicassoCT
He botched the transition into something amazon like
igetit41
It is numerically impossible for a person to *earn* a billion dollars (much less several billion). No single person can contribute that kind of value in a single lifetime. It would take thousands of lifetimes. So earning it is simply not possible.
It is, however, possible for a person to *steal* a billion dollars. Or to inherit it from someone who stole it. One of those two paths is how every billionaire got their billions.
eetsumkaus
well yes, that's why a lot of that "wealth" is merely on paper. They "get" it by convincing people what they own is worth far more than they actually are. It doesn't actually matter how much money they "have", only that people think they have a lot of it, because that's what gives them power. In reality, they can only access a fraction of that net worth as actual wealth
DyspronsiumAddict
The only exception that is odd is media. Rowling sold over 600 million Harry Potter books. If she earned $2 per book (seems reasonable), that is over $1B with no stealing or corruption.
Yes terf and awful person. Yes should pay taxes. But earning $2 per book sold doesn't sound evil to me.
igetit41
Respectfully disagree. Your example is very reductive. I still don't think she contributed $1B worth of value to the full process of connecting her books to 600M people (printing, advertising, shipping, sales, etc). There are too many people in the middle (between her and the purchasers) who are underpaid, made to work overtime without overtime pay, or working multiple part-time jobs because none of their employers are willing to pay for health insurance and wage theft is still theft.
killergrooves85
And they just stood there and took it. Maybe they still had something left to lose. Maybe we just have to wait for more people with nothing left to lose to stand up and join the Mushroom Kingdom.
thewiggins
They used to sell entire flat pack houses. Nice ones too.
SillySnowFox
I live in one. It's nice. Small, but nice.
Colbar68
We have a Searstown on the west side of Cleveland. It surrounded our local Sears.
TheTeeminSteaminScreaminMemeinSemenCreaminDemon
Wow an evil greedy motherfucker doing evil greedy motherfucker things...color me shocked.
Ijustwantquiet
In the current time frame, he must know there is a Luigi waiting him.
meme2zombie
I think the point is more in how he did it, and how he hid it.
Mathomless
lurklurkingmclurk
OhSheeeeeet
Gonna steal the meme but give nothing back. This is how you become a meme-billionaire.
AllegedlyUncleTonton
I can see the headline: Memeionaire "did it for the lulz" but bankrupts the whole whole internet from goodwill alone
HandoB4Javert
KR1570F
Isn't that the dad of that guy from dropout? I hear they're from cambridge
WholeWheatBunnyHugger
Reacher Gilt. Look it up.
rhaldema
GNU Terry Pratchett
CycloneSP
bloody parasites, man. world would be better off without 'em. shame that'll never happen...
ouchmyhair
Not with that attitude it won't
TonawandaBlue
This type of corporatist bullshit has been taught as gospel truth to MBAs & business students for the last 5 decades. It's a cancer.
zagibu
It's inherent in the system. So no, it's not a cancer, it's working as intended.
TonawandaBlue
No it isn't. We used to understand that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RHzn3lnFXE
zagibu
Yeah, if that is the understanding of the system you have, then good luck.
TonawandaBlue
It was that system which transformed the US from a 3rd rate backwater to become the world's most powerful economy & wealthiest nation by the middle of the 20th century. America's decline began when we abandoned those ideas in favor of supply-side bullshit.
zagibu
No, it was war profiteering that made you rich. Something that you have failed to repeat since the success of the first two world wars.
TheSpindrifter
Don't forget the mandatory 10% culling of workforce every year to "streamline", "cut waste", "improve efficiency", and "force the remaining workforce to be more 'productive' out of fear that they will be next" while doubling to tripling the average workload.
Comet260
"Rightsizing".
GrandmasterSpank
What I dont understand is that there isnt a single person named Luigi in those 175.000 people who lost their jobs, their income. And thats just the people who worked at Sears. I bet suppliers lost jobs, city lost jobs, cleaners lost jobs. This wasnt just 175.000 people at Sears but also everything around it. How can you screw HUNDREDS of thousands of people.... and not one is named Luigi ?
Trunkmonkay
Why didn't you do it? If you're frothing at the mouth for vigilante homicide go do it yourself instead of wondering why a group of people with everything to lose didn't do it for you.
GrandmasterSpank
Oh I have a good life and I'm close to a comfy retirement :) And I dont want people to do it, I'm just wondering why it doesnt happen. 175.000 people and not one of them is angry or poor enough to do something? I'm curious about the psychology behind it. I'm wondering what it would take for ONE person to do something. How many people can you shaft before you get murked? A million? 100 million?
Trunkmonkay
Getting "what's a banana cost, $10?" vibes from you. You're just as out of touch as the CEO you hate if you genuinely can't understand why people don't immediately commit a homicide the second they catch a pink slip.
GrandmasterSpank
So let me ask you: what would it take for you to do something like Luigi? Is there any situation you can imagine yourself in where you say: "ok, this is enough I'm gonna do it." Or is there never such a moment?
Trunkmonkay
Do you think losing your low wage retail job should equate to such a moment for a person? Are you so out of touch that you think killing a person should become an imperative when you lose your $8hr part time job?
0xBADA55
That’s why evil keeps going on, nothing to stop it
Blackfinity
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
haveanupvotegif
Be the change you want to see in the world
somesomebody
Because of what you're seeing right here in this post.
Nobody knew who was responsible. There was no demon to fight, no dragon to slay. Anyone effected by this probably thought exactly what this post is trying to to refute: that another company outcompete it or that it couldn't keep up with the times.
Poppypoppoppop
And in America of all places. This applies here:
Dalael
Be the Luigi you want to see in others.
RalphH
Because people have not understood what was happening, they still do not. And this is why it is happening again and again.
Fifofu
Back then, losing a job wasn't a death sentence like it is today. You'd avoid burning bridges, and proceed to work for someone else like Amazon and Walmart. Job hoping and career advancements were real possibilities.
ElChupaNuggra
99% of them likely don't even know his NAME, 95% of them likely never even had 1/100th of the information here, no idea what he did to them or how. Just straight up, 'Sorry, things fell through, we're bankrupt, get a new job or starve.' No one, NO ONE told them ANY of this.
Camelspotting
I mean he's just the one who made out with the cash. There were thousands of brick and mortar companies that failed to adapt to the rise of amazon/ecommerce, sears wasn't special in that regard.
jethroismaxbaer5772
According to Wikipedia, he did get kidnapped in 2003 but was released two days later because they used his credit card to order pizza. Here's the reference but it's paywalled. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2004-11-21/the-next-warren-buffett
rossimus
Well, why aren't *you* doing a Luigi?
GrandmasterSpank
Oh I have a good life and I'm close to a comfy retirement :)
rossimus
What does that have to do with doing a Luigi?
GrandmasterSpank
I have no reason to Luigi. But I can imagine out of the 175.000 people who got hit by that billionaire, at least one will lose his house or can not afford his diabetes medication anymore and probably die. As far as I know people in USA have almost no safetynet. So I can imagine at least ONE of those 175k will be in a position where he's super angry or simply has nothing to lose. But I guess people always still have something to lose so billionaires can keep doing this.
rossimus
You're so close to figuring it out
barstr7
Because most of the people who work for multibillion dollar mega corporations have no idea who's running them. America's "keep em poor" strategy keeps them worried about rent and feeding their family. How many Walmart workers do you think actively keep tabs on the CEO's shenanigans? Ain't nobody got time (or money) for that.
Wapusk
https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1M25wNHM1eTJyNTJmaDl6NjIxa2xzaXd4NHdiZDRmb3NmanQxOGZpZyZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/3ohzdMvc1w2VlFOpRC/200w.webp named Luigi.
Jerry7887
I admire the “just pay me enough to live on” guy!
GrandmasterSpank
Image just 100 of those in the country. There would be a lot of pressure on politicians to do something. Raise minimum wage for the first time in 20 years for example.
CurbYourClassWar
We’re all heavily sedated with entertainment and high grade brainwash to make us all masochistic bootlickers.
Comet260
Yeah, but they keep making entertainment more and more expensive.
CycloneSP
don't forget isolated and alone
TuckerCarlsonWarnedYouTheredBeGirlsLikeMe
Malls lost foot traffic, small businesses and other corporations lost customers indirectly.
crazyspelling
This is kind of an important point. One could argue... not me... that this asshole was just ahead of the curve on the death of the shopping mall. Sears going down preceded Federated, and all of the huge regional independent anchors, either closing or consolidating into Macy's.
gamer2k4
Because, believe it or not, most people who aren't on Imgur still feel vigilante murder is wrong. If you're surprised that people aren't just going around shooting other people in revenge, that's your own moral failing.
calenti
And yet many states love that death penalty so someone who commits a violent act in a moment is suffocated in the name of bebe jebus while turds like this who ruined so many livelihoods sip drinks on the beachfront. The Wobblies had it right, they just didn't go far enough.
GrandmasterSpank
Yes and no? Society feels vigilante murder is wrong, because that is a direct action. But soeciety doesnt care much about CEO's killing thousands of people every single year because it's indirectly. If I'm morally failing because I dont disaprove of Luigi, what does it say about society no protesting 24/7 against CEO's and companies who kill thousands, tenths of thousands.. millions worldwide. Isn't society morally corrupt when it judges Luigi harsher than it does a billionaire?
vonHoopla
Because peace and rule of law are fetishized as the foundations of a better society when in reality, they are the rewards for having fought for, and upkeeping, a better society. The horse got put before the cart. Among many other things.
TheOldSchoolisBack
Many of the claims here are misleading or outright false. Its rage bait. Sears was a dead man walking for years, and everyone there knew it. Lampert’s dumb ideas certainly didn’t help much, but his cash might have actually delayed the end. He lost billions on Sears. Check his net worth today vs what it was 20 or 30 years ago. Still a billionaire asshole, but significantly less than it used to be.
nracker
3.8 billion in 2006
3 billion in 2013
became CEO
2 Billion in 2016
2.2 billion in 2026 Not sure he lost that much on Sears, but it is all pretend money at those volumes.
nracker
financial crisis, 2008 financial crisis.
mksu
You can commit any evil so long as you wear a suit while doing it.
GrandmasterSpank
Yes but not one of those 175.000 has nothing to lose? None of those have an uncurable disease? None of them are so incredibly pissed and angry they dont care anymore? Not a single person does anything?
bertchstudio
Fwiw the Sears nearest to Dearborn MI, was left up half torn down on purpose, just before Oct 7. And they intended to leave it like that through the winter, I'm pretty sure. A Ford bldg in Dearborn too, To trigger the large middle eastern population here.
8 complained on FB about it and the city forced it to come down after that.
It's also one of the few bldgs I had memories with my grandmother in so of course it had to go
mksu
Everyone keeps waiting for someone to save them. If you won't act, why would you expect anyone else to? People hope to make it through whatever is happening by keeping their heads down, ignoring the fact that there's no bottom to this abyss.
CycloneSP
almost. you also need to make sure that the act and the result are separated by enough time no one will catch on till it's too late
mrsdowneyjr
Anchors leaving ruined malls
JAPONfan
that what you get when you teach people from child that the money and corporation is the most important thing in your country
GrandmasterSpank
Also you teach them 'violence is not the answer' even though that billionaire just destroyed the future of a few hundred thousand people, causeing extreme pain and suffering to probably thousands of them.
JAPONfan
As an avid wild west and westerns fan I can clearly see how 'violence is not the answer' was made up to "please do not try to kill cattle barons and land owners and railroad moguls cos that would totally work."
GrandmasterSpank
Another example is: I got bullied in school. Nothing worked. School counseling, parents talking. One day I brought a hammer to school and hit my bully on his leg, just once. Problem was solved, never bullied again. Seems to me violence worked pretty well.
Jarjarthejedi
"Ah, but he only hurt and killed people with a pen, not directly, so it's ok!" - Way too many assholes :/
GrandmasterSpank
Exactly.
meganical
Why are you surprised? Millions of Americans loathe Trump and nobody has become Luigi despite that
Saturniidae
At this point he'll just become a martyr for the 20% of Americans for whom "owning the libs" is their highest calling. The man is nearing the final stages of dementia, and his base is fracturing. Giving him a martyr's death now would be worse for the left than the boost he got from his first assassination attempt.
GrandmasterSpank
Well... 2 tried I think? And thats the 2 we know of. Trump might be super hard to get, but a guy like Lampart? He doesnt have Secret Service around him.
zagibu
Super hard to get? Some dunce actually managed to take shots at him from a roof not even 200 yards away from where he was standing. If that guy had ever taken a few practice shots in his life before this stunt, he would not have missed those shots. 200 yards for a non-moving target is really easy, even with iron sights. I've been teaching 16 year olds shooting 300m (which is over 300 yards) with iron sights, and many of those would not have missed on their first shot ever.
InablueMule
Kidnapped once. At least 4 homes and Yacht.
bamcobra
Where were you when we really needed you. Sigh…
zagibu
Who is "we"? The society has already collapsed a long time ago. All the property is concentrated in the hands of a few, and everyone else forever has to rent from them. People who have almost nothing prefer to worry about people who have even less than to demand their fair share from the profits their labor generates.
It is over for the west, and Trump is just a symptom of the downfall.
ignotoCiResto
Ill look like someone with a tinfoil hat for this, but I always tought that, that guy was on trump paycheck. like, he was 20, yes, but he was from one of the families that teach how to use a rifle before teaching how to drive. He managed to get himself and take aim without anyone stopping him? He used an AR15 but managed only 3 shoot before being killed? He missed all three shot? And this is only on the guy side. From trump side, well, a coward like him that go out of the meat shield protection>
ignotoCiResto
to raise an arm, in an almost nazi salute, in "defiance aganist the sniper"? a shot from an AR15 that dont leave a trace on the ear? an ear that heal, perfectly, without any "new skin" color showing, no deformities and no visible signs? in two months? I got a scar on my right arm, two on my left and one on my belly. Each of em started as a small angry red line and became bigger and bigger until they became a fat 5mm large, 2mm high pouche of a totally different color skin. Each of em leaved by>
GrandmasterSpank
Ok, so if it;s rather easy to almost kirk the prez, then how hard can it be to kirk a guy like Lampart. Why are those people still walking around freely without getting .... every day?
zagibu
Because there are very few Luigis around.
buurd86
Because, just for the attempt, you probably pay with your life. Either death or prison. "The Great American Hero who Offed Lampert" doesn't feed you family or console them for your death.