A look back at California

 

Companies that might not survive, with fun commentary put in by me, so you won’t be bored.

Rite Aid. (Ticker symbol: RAD; about 100,000 employees; 1-year stock-price decline: 92%).
This is unfortunate. I will now have to walk all the way to the downtown Ralph’s to get the mind numbing kind of alcohol that makes your forget everything. They should have stayed Thrifty’s. I still call it Thrifty’s

Claire’s Stores. (Privately owned; about 18,000 employees.) On the rare occasions I do go to the mall, where will I get my cheap jewelry from? I need cheap jewelry and hair accessories made in a random third world country to go along with my  Hot Topic t-shirt of a band that started before I was alive. Who is this Pink Floyd? Who cares, they make a cute T-shirt.

Chrysler. (Privately owned; about 55,000 employees). What will grandma drive? Maybe she can start cycling.

Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group. (DTG; about 7,000 employees; stock down 95%). I think they are failing, because of the name and their cheap ads. I was never sure if this was real rental company or some weird outfit out of a guy’s backyard. And it was always in some odd Metro LA neighborhood. I mean do you get condoms at the 99cent store? No you don’t and I’m not renting from a car place that says dollar and thrifty in it’s title, they should just add on to the name “getting stranded in the desert, so a drifter can rape and kill you and take a REALLY long time to do it.” Might as well. It would go along with the theme of the place.

Realogy Corp. (Privately owned; about 13,000 employees). This is pretty bad, Realology is the big daddy of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, CENTURY 21, Coldwell Banker, Coldwell Banker Commercial, The Corcoran Group, ERA, Sotheby’s International Realty, NRT LLC, Cartus and Title Resource Group. Not bad for me. I own nothing, but bad for you. I have empathy. I never did get the Sotheby’s Realty section though, houses aren’t works of art, at least not in LA.  According to the Today Show being homeless and poor is the new chic thing, so if you’ve lost your home you’re ahead of the fashion curve.

Station Casinos. (Privately owned, about 14,000 employees). Where will locals in Vegas gamble? We’re in La Crisis this is a blessing in disguise. You can’t gamble your house away if there is no place to gamble.

Loehmann’s Capital Corp. (Privately owned; about 1,500 employees). Nordstrom Rack provides better looking non-teeny bopper clothes, so the loss of Loehmann will clear up some parking lots. I’m sure that I’ve almost been killed by Loehman shoppers near the Beverly Center several times. You know how shoppers who want a deal are…

Sbarro. (Privately owned; about 5,500 employees). Thank god. Sbarro is the most disgusting pizza in the world. I mean I get hungry and I eat their crappy food, but I would rather that option be taken away. It’s the McDonald’s of pizza places. It’s a worse sin than Dominoes and Dominoes is like cardboard with tomato sauce. And Sbarro has the audacity to be expensive with its crappy pizza. You can easily spend 10 dollars on nothing, half of which you will throw away.

Six Flags. (SIX; about 30,000 employees; stock down 84%). Magic Mountain is closing? Aww man not cool. I loved Magic Mountain, because you could actually see a fight there. “Bitch I will see you in the back of the Revolution, because right now I want to get on the Colossus, but look at me again and I’ll beat you right here in line, because kicking your ass would be more fun than this ride right now.” 

The rides where scary and the employees had zits and facial hair. It was the anti-Disneyland of amusement parks. And being the anti anything made it cool, remember hating everything was very hip back in the day. Now I’m too old to go there, but it’s a teen paradise though. Teenagers should start robbing people like they did in the 1990s, so they can use that cash to keep Magic Mountain open. It’s an institution. A figurative demonstration of the Southern Calfornia teen lifestyle.

Is the gum portrait still there?

Blockbuster. (BBI; about 60,000 employees; stock down 57%). They are still open?

Krispy Kreme. (KKD; about 4,000 employees; stock down 50%). This is shocking. I never thought people would stop eating cheap, pointless food, but I have been wrong before, like once about 14 years ago when I said there was no way Braveheart would win an Oscar. I still can’t believe that actually happened.

Landry’s Restaurants. (LNY; about 17,000 employees; stock down 66%). No more Rainforest Cafe…I remember when I went on a date with a guy who took me there. He seemed disappointed that I was not impressed. I don’t want to eat in a pretend Rainforest. I don’t want to eat Midwestern food in a fake rainforest with screaming kids at the next table. I can go to Silver Lake to hear screaming kids and do that with food that tastes good.

Sirius Satellite Radio. (SIRI – parent company; about 1,000 employees; stock down 96%). I have no comments on this. I think something will work out, everything else has become digital and the fact that broadcast radio is holding on seems odd. I think it’s the car and old people that are keeping radio in its traditional format alive. So broadcast is now FM and AM is now broadcast. Kill the car, kill old people, oh that doesn’t sound right…maybe I should have stuck with my no comment.

Trump Entertainment Resorts Holdings. (TRMP; about 9,500 employees; stock down 94%). Holidays should not include sitting at a table with smelly cigars and wigs.

BearingPoint. (BGPT; about 16,000 employees; stock down 21%). They say they are a consultant firm, but that just means temp worker for people with degrees. I guess the temp work for skilled white-collar labor has dried up in this country, so how do you update your skills when you’ve already went to school. Maybe you can parlay that English degree into an air conditioner repair career. Good Luck with all that.

by Browne Molyneux
Facts gotten from: 15 Companies that might not survive.
Yahoo Finance
by Rick Newman