Toys 'R' Us Is Closing 180 U.S. Stores After Declaring Bankruptcy

[bucolic_frolic]

20. It's a wasteful system

Idea, venture capital, Wall Street funding, big box stores everywhere. Then people get tired of the junk they're
trying to push on the public, sales decline, and the whole process implodes. Then bankruptcy. Stiff the lenders, collect investment bank advisory fees, and go public again, laden with debt. It's a process that hollows out the company financially, and leaves public shareholders with peanuts. When the final belly-up happens, private equity firms (think Wall Street again) buy the carcass, jack up prices to juice the profits, then sell it off at a profit. Shareholders of the public company are usually left with nothing.

Without the financing, none of these chains would exist in the first. It's all about the profits.

You want value? Go to a mom and pop store. Especially for restaurants. How do they make money? Charge the customer 20 times the cost of ingredients, pay their employees chicken feed.

Is it any wonder people are in debt, broke, scraping by? The system just bleeds you.