Circuit City Posts Huge Loss

Electronics retailer Circuit City Stores Inc. reported a $54.6 million first-quarter loss Wednesday and withdrew its financial guidance for fiscal 2008 as the company slashed jobs and restructured to fend of competition.

I posted this about this company back in April. I am sorry for the workers who will lose their jobs but this company was removed from my shopping list once this story was revealed.

Karma is a bitch!!

Circuit City To Fire Workers To Get Lower Wages

Last week Circuit City announced that they would be laying off employees and replacing them with lower paid workers. The fired employees are welcome to reapply for the jobs they were just fired from at the lower wage.

The electronics retailer, facing larger competitors and falling sales, said Wednesday that it would lay off about 3,400 store workers -- immediately -- and replace them with lower-paid new hires as soon as possible.

The laid-off workers, about 8 percent of the company's total work force, would get a severance package and a chance to reapply for their former jobs, at lower pay, after a 10-week delay, the company said.

Wal-Mart started the race to the bottom and others I am sure will follow suit. It is time to cross Circuit City off the list of retailers that you visit. Wal-Mart should already be on that list. I understand that when you are not performing well that changes need to be made but why is it that the employees are always the first ones hurt?

Class Struggle

Upon researching some old articles on the class struggle we now find ourselves in I came across this editorial in the Wall Street Journal from then Senator-Elect Jim Webb of Virginia

The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes.

Read the enire editorial. It is a sobering look at where we are today.