Recent developments in the U.S. economy have no meaning. Breathtaking inequality of wealth, brazen financial fraud, a Congress with approval ratings lower than gonorrhea, the disappearance of the Middle Class, the wholesale abandonment of the rural and the young – none of it means anything. It’s just what’s happening. Things like this are normal, really. The sentiment above is described …
How to get beyond the parasite economy
It is the middle of the night between Friday and Saturday, and I am thinking about Guitar Center. If the above sentence appears strange to you, we are in the same boat. I do not know how bizarre and random your life appears to you, but mine is definitely some sort of mysterious fractal. About four months ago, I was …
Forty things I learned in forty years
This year I turn forty. I am spending all year considering the meaning of this chronological milestone, if any exists. Mostly, I want to give back to people who have made my life so rich. Most days I feel ignorant and frivolous in the face of a universe I can only perceive with a brain designed for the Stone Age …
Guitar Center’s real problem: their customers are broke
Stephen Nellis at the Pacific Coast Business Times wrote a nice article about why Guitar Center’s future hangs in the balance of this last Christmas’ results and the debt-for-equity play by its major creditor. It is a nice summary of what has gone on so far, with a couple of opposing perspectives from Paul Majeski, the publisher of Music Trades …
Guitar Center and how not to respond to a viral blog post
The way Guitar Center has responded to a simple blog post going viral is going to go down in business textbooks – but not the way they are hoping. Two weeks ago I was a good, regular customer of theirs, albeit one who wrote a brief piece about how big box, mass-market retail was in trouble. This week, my article …