Unless you’ve been living in the Himalayas, you’ve undoubtedly heard a classic example recently–the brouhaha and subsequent firing of the Rutgers University basketball coach and its athletic director–the former for browbeating his players into submission with physical and mental intimidation, and the latter for being stupid enough to let him get away with it.

Full disclosure: I’ve always disliked the attitude of some athletes and their coaches–those that are supposed to be leaders and role models. So I’m not a fan of jocks, ex-jocks and wannabe jocks and all the people who put jocks on a pedestal. They give the term “coaching” a bad name and prove that coaches are about as far from being true leaders as Gandhi was from being a warlord.

I also cringe at the popular practice of many in business to use sports analogies to describe good business practices and leadership qualities. I think we’ve reached a point where the phrase “there is no ‘I’ in team” is a bit disingenuous.

But sports are not the culprit. Bastions of bad leadership run from heads of state in places like Italy, Cyprus, Zimbabwe and North Korea, to the so-called captains of industry at companies ranging from Best Buy, Kmart, Hewlett-Packard, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the granddaddy of them all–Enron.

But this begs the real question, what does it take to be a great leader? Is it the command-and-control freak whose mantra is “Do what I tell you because I’m never wrong?” The self-proclaimed genius that thinks iPads can replace people; or the laid-back laissez-faire type who doesn’t mind losing control to employees?

The answer is simply that one size does not fit all!

Great leadership is transitional and transformational, and leaders must adapt their styles to rapid-fire changes in business, the type of operations they’re running and the nature of people working for them. These are just some of the factors that may require an autocratic approach one day and a democratic one the next.

Overall, leadership in any industry, organization or government is a delicate blend of art and science — somewhere between P.T Barnum and Oprah.

That being said, I’ve come across certain characteristics that are common to all:

1. Simplify by cutting through the clutter of a complex situation to stop all the noise from others in order to communicate ideas and offer solutions everyone can understand. As we’ve seen time and again, great leaders are not just orators. They are the ones that listen to what others are saying.
2. Inspire others to look beyond the petty day-to-day squabbles and egoism of the business environment to truly support each other and learn. Great leaders instill the germ of an idea and keep their people focused on solutions.
3. Shed the command-and-control image. It may be efficient and may appear to make decision-making easier. But this type of leadership simply doesn’t create a feeling of trust or confidence in the people who work for you. Basically, people resent it. True leaders don’t need to consolidate their power by telling everyone else who’s in charge.
4. Develop individuals within the organization rather than consolidating your own power. Too many leaders seem to be threatened by people who are coming up the corporate ladder behind them. The great ones encourage their climb and are confident enough in their own abilities to always be looking for their own replacement.
5. Courage to admit mistakes without trying to throw others under the bus. And don’t try to hog the credit for the success of others. This will help create the team-like atmosphere that can be critical to a company’s success.
6. Servant leadership. These are the people who are confident enough and have such a high work ethic that they can lead from the rear–meaning that it’s often the team, not the individual who gets the credit.

It’s like General George Patton used to say: “We herd sheep, we drive cattle, but we lead people. So lead me, follow me, or get out of my way!” Or a more bellicose approach “Si vis pacem para bellum.” Look it up!

In 2013, I can’t think of a well-grounded leftist intellectual that can defend actualization of the Karl Marx syndrome we witnessed in the 20th Century. Russia, the former Soviet Republics, and Eastern Europe have all moved on. By most gauges, shedding this ideology has brought improvement and positive change. Poland grew faster last year than any other nation in Europe, which in the midst of our recession may not be saying much, but still says a lot. Of the three Asian remnants of Communist ideology, China and Vietnam have cherry-picked through Das Kapital and added doses of Confucian and Keynesian economics to craft some semblance of prosperity. North Korea has abandoned all logical thought; the only question is how much of the rest of the world they intend to take with them when they go.

Yet dear reader, this is a newsletter about retail, so here is our thread. In my trip to the supermarket in Caracas this afternoon, there was no coffee of any variety on the shelf, and the reek of rotting meat was stomach turning. People wait in long disorganized lines for basic food supplies. We are witness to the tragedy of governmental pricing control for food; Venezuela has gone from an exporter of food to an importer over the course of its Chavezian transformation. Today, much of its basic food needs are imported from the United States.

My economist colleagues predict that global food prices will increase country by country by 10% to 20% over the next year. While the precise number is anyone’s guess, it’s a fact that food costs are increasing by at least twice the rate that global wages increase. How are we going to continue to feed ourselves?

The answer, in part, rests in the world of retail where for almost 30 years we have watched a concerted effort to engineer both value and fair profits from the supply chain. From growing, to trucking, to minimizing waste and mechanizing the modern warehouse, the degree to which the increased costs of basic food commodities have been passed on to the consumer have been limited for us living in First World nations. Thank Walmart, Tesco and Auchan; but also thank the farmers markets, the slow food movement, and the advent of local community-supported agriculture (CSA) organizations.

At both ends of the First World retail spectrum, we are watching innovation and reinvention driven by competition and local entrepreneurship. At best, we ask government to get out of the way. We’d rather have the local farmers market manager certify a farmer’s products than the FDA, although we need to embrace both in the flawed, but preferable, world of Capitalism.

Journalists keep asking me –- whether it’s here or in Shanghai —how are we going to feed ourselves in the next five years, both from the standpoint of cost and safety? My answer is always the same: Price controls are not the answer, but organized retail can, and will, do its part. The process takes time, but it does work. The places that will feel the most pain over the five years are those where global organized retail is not playing a transformational role in a local economy. India is a prime example. Open markets provide incentive and examples for local merchant organizations to do it often better and faster. They provide farmers with stable prices, drastically cut down on spoilage, and most importantly, help get their offerings on dinner tables everywhere while making a profit.

When I arrived at Simón Bolívar International, I was expecting a sturdy intelligence officer with a serious face to meet me at passport control. I did not expect the smiling young woman with braces that giggled when I presented my thick, well-worn passport. She greeted me warmly after a long flight, stamped my passport and let me pass, welcoming me to her country. She deserves better.

What’s Wrong With That Statement?

Am I wrong to be disgusted over the blatant irresponsibility of some of the largest retailers and apparel brands in the world, as well as the governments and factory owners in the countries sought for the lowest possible manufacturing costs? Not to mention their collective and total disregard of the horrific working conditions; “slave labor” compensation; indeed the very lives of those making the world’s precious apparel? I will answer for you. Not only am I right, we should all be disgusted.

But let me be clear. I am singling out those brands and retailers who have far too long “kicked the can down the road,” avoiding direct responsibility for dealing with a “slave-like” process, albeit a very complicated one. Why am I singling them out, and detaching them from the fraudulent and corrupt governments and businesses they must deal with? Because at the end of the day, it is their supply chain. They control it. They own it. And, they are the only entity in the whole rotten process that has the clout to correct it.

Some are doing it right, and you know who you are. Many have not done anything about it, or at best deferred direct responsibility, and you know who you are.

So, for those of you who have “passed the buck,” “turned a blind eye,” and generally stuffed it down on your priority list, I am “in your face” about your supply chain. And yes, it is your supply chain!

At the beginning of your supply chain there are people literally dying to make your stuff for you, for as little compensation as their greedy factory bosses can get away with. Why? Just so they can subsist at some groveling level, so that you, at the other end of your supply chain, can make a fortune and continue to subsist in “opulence” (certainly a lifestyle beyond what that groveling worker can even imagine). And let’s not forget how attached at the hip you are to your compulsively addicted, and excessively consumptive consumer, who just wants more, more, and more for me, me, me — and oh yes, cheaper, cheaper, and cheaper.

And I don’t have to tell you that in order to continue to give more and cheaper to that consumer, while still maintaining your wonderful lifestyle — and, oh yes, giving Wall Street what it demands — somebody has to take the fall and give more for less somewhere in your supply chain. And where might that be? Just think about the now 1100 dead, plus the injured, disabled, and their extended families now living in horror in Bangladesh. And then think about what the greedy, fraudulent, corrupt, criminal bosses and politicians do to do to keep up their lifestyles by promising to give you “more for less,” regardless of what it takes to make that happen.

Disgusting? It’s beyond disgusting. And, I declare it is your supply chain even though you may share those poor workers with other major brands and retailers.

And while I’m at it, I’m also sick of hearing about how we lift up these third-world economies by importing billions of dollars of stuff, which in turn provides jobs for their poverty-level populace, thus creating a virtuous cycle of growth. Growth for whom? Growth for the bosses and politicians I described above, riding on “the backs” of cheap labor. Indeed, in harsh reality, it’s a vicious cycle of depression and death for those of least value to your supply chain – the workers.

It’s Your Supply Chain – Only You Can Do Something About It

So, I really have no interest in reading or hearing about consortiums, NGOs, and big gatherings of “Mr. Bigs” to figure out what to do about this horrific situation. We know where “designs by committee” end up; much less, committees that are made up, and largely led by, the very same people who have caused this disastrous situation in the first place — and whose interests benefit from keeping this as status quo.

At the end of the day, it is your supply chain, period. So, do something about it on your own. Get “feet on the ground” where this horror is playing out, and do the right thing by forcing those at the beginning of your supply chain to do the right thing. And then keep your people on the ground to enforce it.

And if the bosses don’t adhere to your demands, just plain fire them, as you would any other employee that doesn’t work by the rules. YOU are the money train for the entire supply chain. Only YOU can make the right thing happen. If costs go up and you lose a few bucks on the bottom line, at least you may be saving a life at the very beginning of your supply chain.

So, do the right thing! Or, go live with yourself in a dark closet somewhere filled with clothes made by “slave labor.”

For those of you who have gone through retail remembrance reprogramming, a quick history lesson: During the 1990s, which in hindsight represented the full-tilt zenith of big box retailing, superstore chains were exploding. Be it home improvement, home furnishings, computers or consumer electronics, big boxes were multiplying at geometric proportions.

And the biggest box of them all was Incredible Universe, which was a dramatic new retail platform from the folks who ran some of the smallest boxes out there, Radio Shack. Current management at the time – who can remember back that far – decided to out-box everyone else out there and go for broke. The first Incredible Universe opened just off Old Country Road in Westbury on New York’s Long Island, which with the exception of Paramus, New Jersey and Schaumburg, Illinois, is about the most concentrated retail location in the country.

The store was well over 150,000-square feet, if memory serves me well, and featured just about every conceivable product with a plug that existed at the time. And considering this was well before iWhatevers, that was a whole lot of TVs, stereos and toasters. Every shopper got a personal identity card that promised all sorts of digital delights. There were salespeople in snappy uniforms as far as the eye could see. It truly was incredible.

It was also way, way too much. Shoppers were overwhelmed and they ended up underbuying. The Universe as we knew it soon failed to exist.

Fast forward a couple of retail generations to today’s reigning – by process of elimination, it has to be noted – big box player in consumer electronics retailing: Best Buy. We’re not here to go through all of Best Buy’s problems. Frankly, the Robin Report website doesn’t have that much bandwidth. But among the leading issues the retailer faces is that its physical stores are just too big. Talk to anybody who follows retailing and they’ll tell you that the problems of too many stores in the country is only matched by the problem of too-big stores.

And Best Buy has got it the worst. Unlike a Home Depot or a Lowes, which need those tens of thousands of square feet of space for tools and aluminum siding, Best Buy has more space than it knows what to do with. Let’s face it, nobody has bought a CD or DVD in a store since the Bush administration. So, as Best Buy was on the leading edge of the big box movement it may also be in the forefront of the next trend in superstore retailing: Not-So-Big Boxes.
Yes, the DIY twins need that floor space, but does Bed Bath & Beyond or Staples or Office Max require stores that large? What about giant furniture stores like Rooms To Go or Raymour & Flanigan? And does it end there? What about off-pricers like the MarMaxx group? What about supermarket? And ultimately, what about the biggest big boxes of them all, Walmart and Target?

If, as some people predict, anywhere from 30% to 50% of general merchandise sales will eventually be done online, does that mean we are in the final stages of Big Box retailing? Does it mean that, in the end, the big box will be outdone by the small carton?

Warren Shoulberg is editorial director for several Sandow Media home furnishings business publications and is glad he was there for the big box era.

Why? Because supermarket shoppers are a fickle bunch. And nowhere is that more evident than in their fast-changing attitudes toward brands and their loyalty to them — or, to be more precise, their lack of brand loyalty.

Of course, brand loyalty has been fading for a long time, but for the first time, surveys of motivations behind consumer buying decisions show that a large majority of supermarket shoppers have no brand preference at all. Instead, they are prone to swing between brands, or to opt equally for specialty or store brands.

Several newly issued consumer studies show how dramatic the decline in brand loyalty is. For instance, Deloitte’s American Pantry Study shows that 90% of shoppers at least occasionally will opt for a store brand in lieu of a national brand. That finding is backed by other surveys that indicate a striking 56% of shoppers have no brand loyalty at all.

This lack of brand loyalty gives national manufacturers of consumer packaged goods (CPG) every reason to feel agita. It also means that manufacturers soon won’t have the wherewithal to do all the heavy lifting concerning product promotion.

So, if manufacturers soon won’t promote as effectively, who will? Well, the only player left is the retailer.

Here’s some of what retailers will have to do better on their own:

• Seize the product-development initiative from national CPG manufacturers. No longer should store brands mimic national brands in content or appearance. Instead, store brands should be high-quality and attractively packaged products in their own right. They should be priced near, or even above, similar national brands’ price points. Supermarkets can also lift a page from Target’s playbook by offering tiers of store brand product ranging from value offerings to high end.
• Make the supermarket stand for something. It should be conspicuous to shoppers that the store means, say, quality, innovative products, or price. Limited assortment operators including Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and Aldi, respectively, already do this. Or, like Target, supermarkets can stand for “cheap chic.”
• Make the supermarket an inviting destination so customers will want to go there instead of viewing shopping as drudgery. That means the supermarket must have high-quality perishables departments, be convenient to shop, and feature high service levels. Supermarket operators Wegmans and Publix already do a good job of this.

Even with those basics under their belts, supermarkets still will face a few challenges. That’s because consumer studies show that huge majorities of shoppers are looking for quality products throughout the store — up to 75% of shoppers say that is what they have in mind.

And, just to complicate things, many shoppers make buying decisions on the basis of whim or desire rather than more rational-seeming reasons.
Finally, retailers must market with this conflicting mandate in mind: shoppers still demand reasonable price points.

Now let’s return to the original issue of the decline of brand loyalty. A multitude of reasons have contributed to the phenomenon, but the longest-running factor is the migration of mass media toward niche media. There was a time when brand owners could blanket the consciousness of consumers with a few strategic ad buys in broadcast and print media. Those days are long gone.

Other factors include consumers’ growing awareness that food and health are intertwined. Consumers also are on constant lookout for new and attractively designed products; some 20% of shoppers seek new-product alternatives during every store trip. Neither of these factors cater to CPGs strong suit.

In the end, maybe it’s just as well that mass marketing is disappearing and consumers are more assertive about what products they want. Retailers using new media to cater to small groups of like-minded consumers or even individual consumers have in their hands the means to present to shoppers just what they’re seeking.

From her earliest days as a caterer in Westport, Connecticut, Martha Stewart has represented a certain taste level, esthetic, expertise and appeal that has been a constant in all of her iterations from author to spokesperson at Kmart, to magazine editor and publisher, to television personality and purveyor of products that look and feel a certain way. Whether for the very privileged few for whom she designed gorgeous weddings as a caterer and wedding planner years ago, or, to those brides who are introduced to the Martha Stewart esthetic in the quarterly, lavish Weddings magazine and on the Martha Stewart Weddings website; or, to homemakers who are willing to cut out centerpieces and decorations made of Martha Stewart crepe paper; or to put their cupcakes in Martha Stewart die-cut treat holders; or, for those who buy Martha Stewart Living paint, kitchen cabinets or outdoor furniture at Home Depot; or buy Martha Stewart Crafts glitter, glue, ribbon and scissors at Michaels Stores — Martha Stewart cuts across all economic bounds and is the brand of choice for people who care about their homes and their surroundings, and ascribe, or want to ascribe, to Martha Stewart’s very specific esthetic.

Martha Stewart shows her customers, many of them devotees, how to get the look she represents with information in multimedia platforms through her company Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSLO), the “leading provider of original ‘how-to’ information, inspiring and engaging consumers with unique lifestyle content and beautifully designed, high-quality products.” The fact that the company, MSLO, continues to lose money does not deter loyal customers from loving Martha, devouring her advice, and buying Martha Stewart branded product across so many retail channels.

The truth is Martha knows her stuff. Martha Stewart magazines, television shows, and blog entries are filled with useful, and not-so-useful, bits of information on everything from horticulture to paint colors to poppy seeds. Martha — her very exacting self — lives her brand from her home base in Pound Ridge to her outposts in East Hampton and Maine. Martha Stewart doesn’t just make this stuff up; she is the expert who can do it all — albeit with lots of help from top-tier professional gardeners and contractors, editors and writers, sous-chefs and producers.

The Martha Stewart brand does have a unique selling proposition – information, expertise, taste, quality — as well as a unique distribution strategy that spans product categories and retail and manufacturing partnerships. It is one of the only brands that combines product with media and information. Martha Stewart (MSLO) controls the design of all Martha Stewart content and all Martha Stewart merchandise including its packaging, signage and collateral material, but it maintains no inventory. But, make no mistake, Martha Stewart (MSLO) is a branding machine which does maintain control of all aspects of its most valuable asset, the Martha Stewart brand.

Martha Stewart stands alone among American brands in the non-apparel categories. It is unique in the merging of product and information, offering this combination to customers across retail channels and media including broadcast, print and digital formats. Martha Stewart continues to churn out information of all kinds that customers love. Will customers still love her product when not sold under the brand name, Martha Stewart, but instead under the JCP brand, Everyday? Will customers get the Martha Stewart message in better product, clean design and a sense of value without the added value and cue of the Martha Stewart brand name? I for one don’t think so. Will JCP win, or, will Macy’s prevail? Who knows? As they say, the jury, or, in this case, the judge, is out.

One thing though seems certain. The Martha Stewart brand is worth the fight. It means traffic, sales and profit to the current retail and manufacturer partners who source, produce and sell it. And fun and inspiration to the consumers who love it. Martha Stewart is a solid, highly successful brand that has no peer in the home categories. It is no wonder Ron Johnson saw it as a way to transform Penney into something else. And he will certainly take the blame if it fails. One person who won’t lose though is Martha Stewart. Regardless of the outcome at Penney, the Martha Stewart brand will remain intact, and, will still be worth fighting for.

Every one is throwing stones and is offering multiple reasons for what went wrong at JCPenney. The reasons for failure are easy to categorize, and I sense a bunker mentality is settling over the retail community.

Beware.

In a business where real change comes very infrequently, the danger of the JCP fiasco may be the end of trying to do anything innovative. Many companies try and fail, but learn their lessons and bounce back by trying again.  The worst thing JCP can do is to go backwards to the status quo.

The vision Ron Johnson brought to the table was revolutionary.  The execution in hindsight was clearly flawed. Unfortunately very few people even got to experience what “the vision” was, as few elements were completed. It could have been a game changer for the retail community.

Current JCP management has a very focused and talented leader. The key investors in the company are smart and have the future in mind.  I hope this team will execute properly and harness the vision and innovation that Johnson began.   It would create a sorely needed new, and unique, customer experience.

Shoppers are always looking for something new. If they try it and like it, they will come back and tell others.   Word of mouth has a very big mouth…it’s called twitter and Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and the rest of them.

The poor execution of a vision should not be an excuse to abandon innovation.

You know those colorful Vikings in the Capital One credit card commercials who ask “What’s in your wallet?” Well, maybe they’re asking the wrong question.

Forget QE3, the wealth effect from rising stock prices, and fears of sequestration. The key factor in determining consumer spending, that all-important measure that comprises a whopping 70% of GDP growth, is paycheck size. It’s about how much is in consumers’ wallets. And with paychecks essentially stagnant, it could come as no surprise that economic growth is pathetic, too.

Personal disposable income increased by a mere 2.0% in March, its second smallest monthly gain in more than three years.Increased payroll and income tax rates were part of the problem. Total personal income before taxes increased by 2.5%.

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Unemployment is another issue. The jobless rate – stuck between 7.6% and 7.9% for the past six months -  is putting tremendous downward pressure on salaries and labor rates.

Which explains why Americans have been acting like the world’s largest group of retirees. They’re trying to live on what amounts to a fixed income, reining in both spending and saving, and paying cash whenever possible.

Total consumer spending grew by 3.2% in March, virtually even with gains of the last two months, and well below the 5% monthly increases seen in the first half of 2011.

Click to see chart full-sized

Click to see chart full-sized

Much of the increase in spending in the past couple of months has been fueled by a rise in auto purchases. Many Americans have been forced to finally replace aging vehicles, and demand by small businesses has fueled a spike in SUV and small truck sales. The larger vehicle sales have also been helped by a drop in gas prices. Auto sales increased by over 9% in March, the most of any key spending category.

Declining prices for food and energy have allowed folks to cut spending in those areas, freeing up some money to buy new cars. Groceries, which comprises 7% of all consumer expenditures, rose by the smallest amount of any major category – between 1.3% and 1.4% – in each of the past three months.

Two of the biggest nondiscretionary consumer expense categories, housing, at 63% of consumer expenditures, health care, at 16%, have experienced relatively stable spending increases of around 3% each.

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How have discretionary categories fared? With less in their wallets, but able to save on groceries and gas, consumers have been able to take advantage of some of the discounts and other promotional deals waiting for them at the mall, though spending growth in these categories has been pretty lackluster, to say the least.

Spending on apparel and footwear, which comprises just over 3% of total consumer spending, rose by 3.2% on a 12-month smoothed basis in March. Although this was its smallest monthly increase in almost three years, it could have been worse. March brought unseasonably cold weather and slow retail traffic, hurting sales of spring goods. Gains by womenswear outpaced those of other apparel and footwear.

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Spending on jewelry and watches has been rising rapidly, gaining 7% in March, outpacing all other fashion-driven categories. Spending on cosmetics, which was experiencing nice monthly gains this time last year, has slowed somewhat.

Personal savings were $329 billion in March, resulting in a personal savings rate of about 2.7% of disposable income, well below 2012’s average monthly level of over 4%. Although consumers have stopped deleveraging, or paying down credit card debt, they haven’t increased their use of plastic: monthly increases in credit card debt have been running between one-half and one percent for the past several months. However, this lack of ability to save means more people are living paltry paycheck to paltry paycheck, which is not great for future spending and economic growth.

Click to see chart full-sized

Although living on what amounts to a fixed income, working Americans aren’t acting like retirees in one respect: they can’t eat at the Early Bird Special, because they’re still at their place of employment, putting in longer hours for less pay.

How much is in your wallet? Really? Okay, then – get out there and shop!

As she tries one on, another “sales assistant” appears in the corner of the fitting room’s full-length mirror. “We got new jeans that would look great with that top (a picture of the item appears). Just tap the image and I’ll show you how they’ll look.”

Welcome to the world of “Augmented Reality,” the convergence of personal shopping, robotics, smartphone and information technology that makes the barcode look like a cave drawing. But this isn’t the stuff of science fiction. Augmented reality of one kind or another is being tested everywhere from Abu Dhabi to London to Tokyo. It has the potential to reshape the in-store experience and even make online shopping, as we know it, obsolete.

Retail Game Changers?

Up to this point, most technological advances were geared to behind-the-scenes activities like supply-chain efficiency and product replenishment. Of course they still are, and anyone who hasn’t taken advantage of it already might want to look around for a new career. But with consumers having 24/7 real-time access to every retailer and product category under the sun—not to mention a short attention span—customer-facing technology in the stores is the new frontier.

Although the recession stifled technology spending in some quarters, retailers and researchers know it can be a game changer in a rapidly shifting retail landscape, and some are committed to this brave new world.

Scientists at Intel are developing a digital fitting room consisting of a high-tech mirror that uses parametric technology to show customers how clothes will look on them.

Me-Ality (short for measured reality) already operates about 50 kiosks in mall locations around the U.S. Shoppers step into it for a 10-second, fully-clothed body scan, and it matches a person’s measurements to brands, styles, prices and retailers in its database.

Mirror, Mirror…

Tesco is starting to roll out “magical” mirrors or “Tweet Walls” at its Westfield department store in London. This uses a built-in, web-enabled digital camera that enables shoppers to show friends on Facebook and Twitter how various outfits look and get their feedback. And if they decide not to buy the item, the brand’s web address is sent automatically to their emails should they change their mind.

Just before Christmas, the chain tested an 80-inch interactive touch screen in one of its toy departments giving customers access to 11,000 items. The chain used this same “Virtual Wall” smartphone technology to sell groceries at London’s Gatwick airport and a subway station in South Korea.

Another twist from Tesco, always an early adopter of cutting edge technology, is now taking place at its Welwyn Garden City Merchandising Center. Large screens display hi-res images of products with different sales rates. Buyers and merchandisers then create new planograms for individual stores based on sales frequency. Because the process is no longer done physically, planning time has reportedly been cut in half.

One of my favorites is in the Vanquish Department store in Tokyo where interactive hangers containing RFID chips transmit information on the item to a video screen above the rack. So this not only facilitates purchasing, but also lets the store know which items are more popular.

Smell-O-Vision Returns

It’s not much of a stretch to imagine touch screens showing chefs preparing different dishes using products in the store and enabling shoppers to actually smell the dish. It was actually tried 50 years ago when smells tied to different points in the movie were released in theaters. Tell me we haven’t come a long way since “Smell-O-Vision” and “Smell-O-Rama” of the 1950s.

A few years away, but still within reach, are 3D printers enabling customers to make their own towels, clothes and utensils. And Google is developing “smart” glasses; lightweight eyeglasses containing a camera, microphone and a screen that will enable customers to access information about anything they are looking at.

Smart TVs utilizing multimedia, will create a more interactive and immersive online experience for shoppers. Intel, for example, is working on a subscription TV service with a streaming device that contains a camera. The idea of a TV watching you is a bit creepy. But that’s progress!

Peek-a-boo, Eye See You!

However, there are some interesting conundrums. For instance, how far can you use this technology on the pretense of improving the in-store experience before customers feel their privacy is being violated by a 21st Century “eye in the sky” that knows what they bought, when, for how much and how susceptible they are to buying some-thing else?

Industry pundits are also wrestling with the question of whether less interpersonal contact between customers and associates is really desirable. Frankly, customer service, the hallmark of every great retailer since John Wanamaker, is often the only thing differentiating one store from another. The upside is that things like virtual assistants and high tech LCD mirrors will enhance the customer’s shopping experience across multiple channels while increasing sales, margins, profits and back office efficiency. In fact, some pundits believe that the introduction futuristic technology could change retailing more in 10 years than it has in the last 100 by transforming retailing into a more customer-friendly and fun environment. In essence, it is about turning a bunch of bricks and mortar into a showplace and entertainment center that goes far beyond the current and somewhat disingenuous phrase “retailtainment.”

Non-union Labor

On a lighter note, you can be pretty sure that technology won’t join a union, hang around outside the store smoking, sit in the breakroom complaining, or call in to skip work because it has to go to their grandmother’s funeral—for the third time.

To quote the godfather of the digital age Bill Gates, “Never before in history has innovation offered the promise of so much to so many in so short a time.”

That’s nice, Bill. But do these pants make my butt look big?

Point the Way

We will also soon reach the day when consumers, while shopping in a store, can point their smartphones at any item to read the RFID chip embedded in the product and link directly to an information web page, which will tell the potential buyer more about the item. If the customer wants to ask questions, he or she will touch a button on the screen of the smartphone and immediately be transferred to the call center of the supplier where trained operators will answer inquiries via text or voice, depending on the consumer’s preference. If the customer wishes to purchase the item, she either puts it in her physical shopping cart, or if she wants it delivered, she puts it in her virtual shopping cart. Should the item be out of stock at the physical location, it will be seamlessly ordered and delivered. The virtual connection will also allow her to see colors and sizes not carried physically at the location and have her selection sent directly to the home. All of this can easily occur without speaking to a single sales associate.

Here’s how it will work. Virtual interconnectivity will allow the customer to bargain in store or online without talking to a human being. She reads the RFID tag on the shelf with her smartphone and the price appears on her screen. The price is $19.95. She touches a button or speaks, instructing her smartphone that she’ll pay $17.95. This “offer” goes to the seller whose artificial intelligence computing system will either authorize the markdown or counteroffer, at say $18.95. ll of this occurs in nanoseconds without inconveniencing the customer who can easily continue to comparison shop at competitive retail outlets on her smartphone. We will have truly returned to the days of the street bazaar where buyers and sellers haggle over every price. The only difference will be that the buyer is interacting with machines representing the sellers.

The Shape of the Future

In this future world, big-box, multi-brand retailers will be simply real estate operators who will lease shelf space without owning inventory. These store-location operators will provide a national umbrella brand for the store, as well as a variety of in-store services (displays, sampling, demonstrations, restocking), which suppliers that are leasing shelf space can purchase à la carte. All inventory will be owned by the suppliers who will determine how much inventory to stock and when to replenish. Shifting ownership of inventory to suppliers also makes them responsible for pilferage and damage costs. Physical stores will become showrooms where consumers can touch, hold, and try out products before making the purchase either in the location or on the Internet. These new mass merchant showrooms may evolve into the updated version of catalog showrooms (Best, Service Merchandise), which died in the late 1980s.

Specialty stores will be closer to today’s retail model in the new world order, each fighting to capture a niche through lifestyle branding and the level of customer service offered. The specialty retailer will own the brand, and carry unique products designed in collaboration with its supply chain, and it will own the inventory. Therefore, unlike the big-box retailers, specialty retailers will not be able to pass inventory carrying costs and obsolescence back on the suppliers. To be economically viable, these specialty retailers will need to be quick and nimble in their product line and inventory management, while offering an appropriate mix of human and virtual support to sell product and sustain the consumer relationship.

Real Estate in the Digital Age

As more transactions occur via the Internet, the high operating overhead to support a declining number of transactions in physical stores will result in closure of peripheral low-volume stores. It will also induce retailers to execute “showcase” locations, which may lose money, but will offer the customer the “touch and feel” experience critical to reinforcing the brand’s lifestyle image. As the number of specialty retail outlets shrink, more C and B mall and street locations will rapidly decline and close. Empty strips and malls littering the landscape will be either repurposed by developers or torn down as the nation dramatically reduces the number of retail outlets in response growth of Internet and television shopping.

The cost-driven abandonment of unprofitable stores by national retail brands will have a disproportionate impact on small towns and outer suburbs of metropolitan areas. The limited presence of national retailers may permit a renaissance of the small town entrepreneurial merchant whose keen eye for product and intuitive sense of local customer taste allows him/her to shop globally via the Internet to buy unique product for one or two local store locations.

Franchise Models

At least one national specialty retail brand, Apricot Lane, seems to be positioned for a local-level, entrepreneur-driven retailing future by offering entrepreneurs the opportunity to operate franchised individual retail locations. The franchise concept allows the local entrepreneur the ability to leverage the scale and resources of a large national organization while maintaining the flexibility and assortment uniqueness of a local individual operator.

For the national organization that owns a branded retail concept, this franchise business model is attractive because the inventory, payroll, and working capital costs are financed by the individual store operators. Franchisees should be able to operate in a given location at a lower breakeven point than a national chain. If a store fails, it is the franchise operator who loses the investment, not the national retailer. Another advantage of the franchise is a well-trained and motivated owner, with a major financial stake in the business, driven to maximize the sales potential of a specific location (as opposed to a hired manager and uninspired part-time store associate). On the downside, managing the brand experience is much more difficult for the corporate office when entrepreneurial independent operators are given the flexibility to define assortments, determine inventory investment, directly conduct their own marketing campaigns, and manage the consumer experience in store. This brand management challenge is the likely reason franchising is rare, and usually unsuccessful, in the fashion retail space.

Enabled by today’s technology, an e-commerce model can be envisioned where the consumer goes to a website operated by the local franchise store, which includes product specific to that store, but seamlessly offers the customer the full range of product available on the national website. Local stores can maintain frequent and direct communication with local customers through social networking and email, leveraging the technology resources of the national brand owner. With this model, consumer intimacy is maintained and nurtured instead of being abandoned as the national brand retreats from specific locations or entire markets.

The history of retailing suggests that when a retailer begins a significant retrenchment, it enters a death spiral from which recovery is rare. Shifting to a franchise or partial franchise operation is a model that may allow existing national specialty retailers, coping with rapidly shifting market dynamics and financial pressure, to reduce asset investment and maintain a broad national footprint of physical locations. And even better, it injects some good old-fashioned American entrepreneurial spirit into their organizations and product assortments.

No one can argue with the benefits of scale when it comes to retail. Large-scale retailers provide deeper assortments at lower prices than their ma-and-pa competitors. But there’s a problem with all this scaling up. Mass-scale stores have become divorced from the communities where they sit. Most big-box retail stores look like they have been dropped in place by the mothership, and show little connection to where they are. All retail should have a sense of place. Now that we’re used to all those benefits of scale, customers yearn again for the relationships they had with their stores when they were owned and operated by their neighbors. Prediction: the next big wave in brick-and-mortar retail will combine the power of scale with the benefits of old-school mom-and-pop retail relationships. This is the transformation of big-box stores to come.

Whole Foods Shows the Way

The relationship-economy movement has already begun. We need look no further than Whole Foods, a leader in this way of thinking. They get involved with the local communities where they do business. Plus they give their GMs some autonomy to broker the local relationships. Whole Foods is genius at forming smart local partnerships to accelerate community engagement. For example, last fall they inked a deal with Smorgasburg, an artisanal food fair launched by the founders of Brooklyn Flea, a popular local marketplace. Smorgasburg features local prepared food providers in month-long pop-ups at the Whole Foods on the Bowery in Manhattan. Every month the pop-ups change out, providing the elusive “refresh” all retailers lust for, and the traffic driver that gets customers into the store again and again.

Now Whole Foods is piloting Wellness Clubs, with test programs running in Dedham, Massachusetts and Princeton, New Jersey. They provide educational programming and social activities around health, nutrition, exercise, cooking and lifestyle. They keep a steady calendar of events and experiences, a combination of free and paid classes, and programs for the kids, too. They have assembled a team of Wellness Experts to design the programs, which run under a membership model. This uses the store as a platform for something very much sought after in modern life—a place to gather, get well, and get stronger. You can’t get that on Amazon.

When You’re Too Big to Get Local

The folks at Target tipped their hat to the local connection movement with less success last spring with “The Shops at Target”—giving five small businesses a thumbs-up and introducing their products in the national chain. They just announced they’re shutting it down. “The Shops” showed an awareness of the value of small businesses, but they had the equation backwards. It gave these small businesses the American Idol treatment, hurtling them onto a national stage, rather than creating a local network that nurtured hundreds and hundreds of small businesses in the communities where they already have their stores. Why? Because it is much harder to do the latter, especially when you are working at the scale of Target.

It gets real hard, real fast to adapt to “local” when you’re as big as Target. The large-scale methodologies for dealing with thousands of stores in a chain simply have to be rock solid, which allows for little flexibility in the operating model. While the Shops are, I’m sure, thrilling for the lucky few business that go along for the ride, they still perpetuate a standardized approach to customer experience design that people expect at Target. The reality is that when you are in a Target, you could be in any Target, anywhere. In all fairness, Target does an excellent job of developing the communities it serves through its philanthropic work. They just haven’t started to integrate that localized effort into their customer experience yet.

Big Boxes Morphing to Smaller Boxes

For retailers offering special services, the pressures to have smaller footprints and slough off square footage can work to their advantage. The big-box Petco customer experience is quite impersonal, and yet they offer useful services like pet training, inoculation services, and grooming in that big-box environment. Services require a relationship, and sadly, the big Petco experience feels entirely transactional. Design-wise, it’s an unforgiving environment for the human touch.

In counterpart, in my own neighborhood in Park Slope, Brooklyn, I’m able to shop one of the 65 “Unleashed by Petco” small-box stores, that have a distinctively neighborhood feel. My local store operates at human-scale, while offering the price advantages of mass-scale. As a result, it is a much more conducive environment to buying services. They offer the same grooming, training and pet-washing services as well as vaccinations and pet insurance. They’ve also figured out how to partner with complementary local businesses, and build good will in the small business community. In Alexandria, Virginia, for example, they partnered with a local dog party business to stage Valentine’s Day parties in their stores.

How Design Accelerates Community Engagement

So what is the glue that holds community engagement together? Design! Strategy and design are powerful when they are developed in parallel; but strategy without design to anchor it often leads to wasted time and effort. Why? Design is a naturally integrating force. Integrated design takes strategy conversations that can spin endlessly and accelerates them to an inflection point. Design is the conduit that can resolve an unprecedented number of cross-functional conversations through an holistic approach. Healthy organizations use systems thinking, as opposed to silo thinking, to enhance the customer experience. And integrated design guides the effort forward like a North Star. It provides a roadmap for a shared vision.

Big-Box Transformation Playbook

Any meaningful retail transformation in delivering community engagement requires a shift in operating model. It can’t be shopped for in parts. Community engagement will not be achieved with just a great store design. It won’t be solved by exciting new merchandising schemes. It will not be the result of a team of innovators. Nor will it be solved by a new website or app. It will be solved by weaving all of these elements together seamlessly. Transformation is in the integration. A modern approach is for the store to behave more like an organism than a box filled with things. All parts of the retail experience have to move in synchrony—staffing, training, marketing, digital tools, fixture design, the look and feel. If even one part is out of step, the customer experience will fail. And it pays off: the more internally integrated the organization is, the more integrated the customer experience will be.

Ultimately, engagement requires new tools that big-box retailers may not be used to honing: social activity design, community moderation, and event production, just to name a few. Retailers will need to design and implement outreach programs, behaving more like an educational provider, creating classes or providing a community center. These engagement capabilities, when combined with the powerful supply chain and e-commerce distribution capabilities already in place, will be essential to the inevitable transformation of big-box retail.

Forget the cresting, breaking and other visible economic waves we discern on the surface of our economy — all accompanied by “cyclical” blathering of the dire necessity to create jobs and growth, and reduce debt and deficit spending.

While we blather, we’re blind. The less visible, stronger undercurrents of our dying free market capitalism that catapulted us to global economic dominance with the promise of an “American Dream” along with it, has been morphing into what I’m calling “bubble capitalism.” Some are calling it “crony capitalism,” which is equally descriptive. It’s just that bubbles are what the cronies feed off of. And it is crushing the American Dream by tipping the once-level playing field in favor of a narrowing segment of big finance and big business, aided and abetted by big government.

And let me be crystal clear. I am not whining for redistribution. I’m suggesting that if we don’t figure out a way to get back to good old democratic capitalism and its level playing field, we will have a barren wasteland in our future, albeit one that will be filled with a bunch of worthless stuff (popped bubble residue), scattered across a country that will look more and more like the third world. Think about three million empty, decaying and devalued houses following the leveraged-up mortgage crash of 2008. And what about the jobs lost, and spike in the number of people living below the poverty line?

Sorry, you want nice, you probably won’t find it in the Robin Report. We like to make wake-up calls.

From The Land of Opportunity Where It All Began

Adam Smith, widely considered capitalism’s founding father, defined free, unobstructed or manipulated markets as the necessary ingredients for capitalism. This free “invisible hand,” as he phrased it, would guide balance and efficiency—a level playing field of democratic capitalism—with a harmonious confluence of government, business and finance all guiding us to growth and prosperity. So how has Smith’s capitalism been turned on its head?

We have to start by looking at what Adam Smith, if he were still alive, would probably point to as the quintessential example of his thesis at work: capitalism’s finest hour. The post-WWII economy in the US, lasting well into the 1970s, experienced the most explosive growth in recorded history anywhere on planet Earth.

Then consumer demand began to taper off in the early 1980s. However, the captains of industry and finance were not about to lower their growth objectives. So, to move the growth needle back up, even as competition was increasing, the magic of marketing, advertising and promoting was put into overdrive. And the shift from a production-driven to a marketing-driven economy was wellon its way, spawning the most sophisticated communications and distribution infrastructure in the world, including the expansion of the retail industry as 54,000 miles of interstate highways invited the massive construction of regional malls.

Indeed, during those halcyon years—the golden age of Adam Smith’s democratic capitalism—we were able to promise an American Dream to all who would strive hard enough to achieve it, even for those of lesser means. There was a harmonious balance of supply and demand, of production and consumption. There was also a great balance in people’s lifestyles…until there wasn’t.

The American Dream On the Slippery Slope Of Trading Value Creation for Bubbles

Entering this new phase, greater capital would be invested in the tools of marketing to create demand and ever-higher levels of consumption. Thus, the US economy was transforming itself from primarily creating value to consuming it. According to the Economic Strategy Institute, total manufacturing as a percentage of GDP has been in steady decline from about 25% in the early 1980s to roughly 11% today. Worse, the decline accelerated during the past decade, dropping some six percentage points. Conversely, consumption has risen from about 62% of GDP to roughly 73% during the same period. Further, the Institute states that our drop in manufacturing has been more dramatic than in any other industrialized economy.

Of course we knew we would lose labor-driven, basic manufacturing industries to lower-cost countries. But the good news about this was supposed to be that we would simply move up the “food chain” to create higher levels of value, such as the technology, engineering, science, and other industries requiring higher and more specialized skills and educations. It did not happen, and there are many supporting metrics and arguments as to why this “brain drain” will continue, easily enough for another article.

Therefore, the famous quote of a half century ago by then-President of General Motors, Charles Wilson: “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country,” could credibly be replaced with, “What’s good for Walmart is good for the country.”

So, the real marketplace economy begins to drift into lower levels of value creation; namely, the services and marketing industries, to fuel more and more consumption, faster and cheaper, required to keep the economy growing.

Thus, the American Dream was stepping onto a slippery slope, in an economy that was shifting from value creation to value consumption, which would make it more difficult to achieve the dream. And thus began a spiral downward that fed on itself, as I will explain below.

Big Government, Big Business, Big Finance: The Bubble Capitalism Playbook

In fact, I would suggest that Adam Smith’s invisible hand is indeed invisible to most of society, however very visible to those they belong to: the hands of big business, finance and government.

Sailing into the 80s with the tailwinds from the golden age, the titans of business and masters of finance created several innovations in an attempt to stimulate the then-slowing pace of growth. One such idea was stock-based compensation (stock options), promising outsized pay for outsized performance. Paradoxically, in many cases it has re-defined real growth as simply “making the numbers, however we must.” And of course, the new masters of the universe now residing in a handful of “too big to fail” financial institutions, not only added to the pressure on businesses to deliver, they too, needed to find ever more creative ways to gin-up growth.

And the third component (following big business and big finance), of what would turn out to be a deleterious cycle of “bubble” formation (leveraging up worthless value), and creating an unlevel playing field, was the complicity of big government. As the financial industry, with their armies of the “best and brightest” in kind of a creative Nirvana, began engineering hundreds of new instruments—not for investing, but for “betting,” insuring, hedging and swapping—it required that the government relax its rules and regulations to create what the masters of finance proclaimed would be healthier and freer markets.

With little urging, the government complied. Ironically, instead of freer markets, and a more democratic, meritocratic capitalism delivering greater real growth (as a result of the convergence of these three entities), instead it led to real invisible hands manipulating capitalism, often creating bubbles of worthless value. And as we’ve witnessed, when these bubbles pop, their creators at the top of the pyramid get bailed out, and those on the bottom are left with worthless residue, certainly nothing any American would be dreaming for.

Understanding the Playbook

Capitalism, therefore, as envisioned by its founder, based on competitors winning or losing in the real marketplace of supply and demand, has given way to market expectations of what the top- and bottom-line “numbers” must be for winning or losing. And of course it is fueled by stock-based executive compensation.

Thus, big business has a strong incentive to do whatever is necessary to make those numbers, and the financial industry thrives on market expectations, its volatility, and winning in their marketplace is often achieved more by trading value than building it.

Of note, just as our value creation in manufacturing as a percentage of GDP gave way to value consumption, now at 73%, the financial sector doubled its share of GDP during the period between the early 1980s and today, from 4% to 8%. And its share of all domestic corporate profits soared from 16% to a whopping 41%.

So, the game of expectations is trumping the “real” game of capitalism and the invisible hands of big finance, big business and big government are tipping the playing field in their favor, and the American Dream is beginning to look like the American Nightmare for far too many.

From the Land of Opportunity to A Barren “Deflated” Wasteland (The Scenario)

So into the US consumption machine we go. It’s now fully driving our economy. And we must meet our “numbers expectations”—double-digit, quarter-on-quarter growth. How do we do it?

Well, we can engineer financial strategies to stoke ever-higher levels of consumption. Whoa! What do you mean by “engineer” financial strategies? Well, how about providing unlimited credit to any consumer who wants it—no questions asked, nor credit rating needed—or promoting credit to those who are not even asking for it.

Aha! I get it, just keep ‘em buying, whatever it takes. You got it: freely available credit, and when the economy collapses like it did in 2008, under the weight of a total credit market debt that was almost 400% higher than our GDP (versus about 160% in the 1940s), our government can jump in and play its part to perpetuate our now clearly consumption-driven economy. They can print money, trillions of it, and just throw it out there hopefully to keep consumers borrowing and consuming. The notion is that businesses will take advantage of borrowing “free” money (low-interest rates) to invest in growth, thus hiring more workers, thus generating more disposable income, and thus encouraging more spending on consumption.

Well, so much for that notion. The financial giants have borrowed the “free” bucks and are using them not to invest in building new value but rather to trade value, for higher profit-taking (and much of it through “speed trading”). And companies have never had so much cash sitting on the sidelines—trillions actually—that they have not used for expansion in the US, much less rush to hire more workers.

Why? Because there is not sufficient demand to invest in new plants, equipment, or more workers. Hmmm! Seems like we need another bubble.

So, the conundrum continues. The Fed throws more and more cash at the wall, hoping a consumer or two will spark another borrowing frenzy to buy, buy, buy. And of course, our hungry retailers, prodded by Wall Street’s demands for growth, are doing their part by deeper and more creative discounting, and opening more and more outlet stores. And all of their consumption stoking is added to by the multiplicity of new websites launching daily, each one offering a better discounted “deal” than the one before it, or selling “pre-used” goods, or just plain “swapping.”

In the face of this deleterious type of demand creation, we must accelerate it to even higher levels because we counterintuitively continue to create more and more stuff and stores, piling on the over-capacity already existing in most industries.

This is a train wreck that is happening as I write! We can see it every day. We acknowledge it, but then continue to open more stores and websites and throw more stuff into an already over-stuffed marketplace, only to have to discount even deeper, and/or provide easier credit to get it sold to a consumer whose real, inflation-adjusted income hasn’t budged for 30-plus years, to say nothing of their disposable income.

And, I’m sorry to say, that for every new, innovative, exciting product, service or experience breaking through with real new value, there are ten times more of commoditized excess that sit on shelves until it is all but given away.

This is simply and clearly, and as I’ve said before, a vicious cycle of value deflation, dragging “all ships down.” In my opinion, this dynamic of a demand- and consumption-driven economy, aided and abetted by government, the financial industry, and big business (all juicing consumption with free money, freer credit, and insane levels and types of discounting), all while being complicit in juicing the supply side using the same tools, leveraging credit and piling on more capacity, is unsustainable.

Furthermore, as I’ve also pointed out, just as there is too much stuff sloshing around the globe, there is too much capital racing at lightning speed, frantically looking for investment opportunities. Well, guess what? The trillions of capital is invested in three places: either to build more capacity (which we do not need in the US); or invested to prop up losers (I rested my case on the Sears example long ago, and there have been, and will be, many others); or, to leverage up another “bubble” (technology maybe?). This vicious cycle accelerates and perpetuates the paradoxical and unsustainable combination of an economy reliant on consumption for growth—the demand side—and over-capacity on the supply side, that is being devalued daily in the attempt to get it sold.

As value is being deflated, over time, in the aggregate, it deflates the economy and everything in it. The end game may not be the US slipping into third-world status, but it could easily slip us into the ranks of a third-rate global economic engine, as a mere consumption machine for the rest of the world.

So, If No Real Growth, Where’s the Next Expectation Bubble?

Well, as former Secretary of Defense Ronald Rumsfeld said, “…you go to war with the army you have.”

So, should we accept bubble capitalism and “go to war” with it? Should we find more bubble opportunities to blow up with credit, enabling everybody to sip Champagne on the way up? Then, following the “pop,” the titans of industry, the masters of finance and big government can continue sipping the bubbly, counting their bounty as they also take a headcount of the number of additional jobs lost, more declining income, and the residue of whatever excess stuff is left scattered across the landscape, adding to all the previous excess?

But not to worry, our now compulsively consumptive culture will be there waiting, with one of the multitude of credit cards sent to them in the mail—no questions asked—poised to find the best deal ever for more stuff than they will ever need.

Seriously, There Can Be a Happy Ending

According to Dr. Robert J. Gordon, Economics Professor at Northwestern University quoted at a recent TED conference, he asked, “…would it be so terrible if economic growth slowed to a halt?” and replied, “…it’s worth considering.” The editors of Forbes posited, “The great concern these days about a lack of growth is primarily due to technological progress: If GDP growth does not keep up with productivity growth, the result is unemployment, but an end to productivity growth would end this worry. Even by Gordon’s estimate, this could happen in the US in the middle of the century at a GDP of around 80,000 dollars per capita. More equally distributed, this should be plenty for a comfortable life. Interestingly, this point was argued 80 years ago by the father of modern macroeconomics, John Maynard Keynes, in an essay titled “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren.” In the essay, he suggested that his grandchildren “… might use improvements in productivity to enjoy more leisure and less work. Maybe we do not need economic growth beyond a certain level.”

Whooopeee!!! We can take it easy and smell the flowers along the way. But, wait a second! I have to go shopping. There’s a sale at the “Everything For Free Store.” They’re paying customers to take the stuff. Can you believe it?

Yes I can.

The Final Word

Without the elements of trust and fairness, democracy and free market capitalism cannot work. And poll after consumer poll are revealing that a greater percentage than not believes our government and the business and financial sectors are lacking both.

As I said, it’s not about rules and regulations, it’s about fixing a broken capitalism.

Adam Smith, where are you when we need you?