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The Nation's Pulse
Top of the Bottom Line
How sad Filene’s Basement and Sym’s won’t survive this year.
Chanukah presents are supposed to make a fellow happy but this one made me sad. It was tendered tenderly enough by loving family members, but after registering the sentiment of the familial I found myself becoming sentimental over the loss of the familiar. The gift was a gorgeous sweater, bought in the waning moments before Filene’s Basement disappears from the American scene. Together with its parent company, Sym’s, it will pass in mere days into the realm of the nostalgic.
My sadness is not so much for the loss of Sym’s as a purchasing venue, although I have been a customer for about 35 years. I have in fact always enjoyed its atmosphere, its buying eye and its selling style. But that sort of bond is easily transferred to another store or chain. The tragedy is that the reason Sym’s and Filene’s have been euthanized is the decline of American prosperity.
That’s right. Although they are discount outlets, their success was based on the overflow with which God blessed America. When the rich got richer the poor got richer by getting these bargains. The irony here is that our nation slipping from prosperity to austerity is depleting the stock at the bargain table.
The way it works is as follows. When times are plush and wallets are flush, manufacturers churn out lots of stuff. All kinds of stuff. High end, low end and middle middle. These makers figure they are in the field of dreams, and if they build it we will come. Some trendy fashion idea, a new nuance in some item, a kitschy new gadget, a whiz of a gizmo: the big cheeses turn them out in the hope of building a better mousetrap. When in doubt, put it out. “Whatsamatta, you don’t want one of these. Okay, take a dozen.”
Many products become cheaper to make when made in larger quantities. Some huge machine gets turned on for eight hours; you can either produce a thousand widgets at a cost of 16 cents apiece or two thousand at 11 cents apiece. In The History of the Jews, Paul Johnson says that the Jews invented the volume discount, but volume manufacture was probably invented by some more populous bunch. Certainly a country like China with a billion citizens understands that less is not more; more is more.
When the bounty flows, when there is money around, the risk-takers take risks. They make tons of beautiful suits, scores of magnificent dresses. They do it hoping to sell them to the rich folks for big money but inevitably there is overstocking, Mister Moneybags decides the pants are too baggy, Miss Prim decides the dress is not dressy enough, and now the Sir Plus line turns into surplus.
The reason why Sym’s and Filene’s have been unable to make money the last few years, despite the fact that there are more people feeling the pinch and looking to save a buck, is that there is no excess inventory anymore. The first company along the line is missing and the assembly is breaking down. The business model of Sym’s and Filene’s is to sell an upper-middle-class look for a lower-middle-class price. They can do that only when the overachievers are overproducing and selling them the spillover.
Actually, Filene’s was around for a hundred years and Sym’s only for half that much, but the latter had bought the former somewhere along the line. Now we will find ourselves with fewer opportunities to cross the lines. The rich people will buy the rich look and the poor people will have to buy the poor look. Not only are we losing our job creators, we are losing our job-lot creators.
The economy has been perched on the precipice for a few years now, and the Darwinian results are some tragic extinctions. As some of the building-blocks of the lavish life we once took for granted are crumbling, we find ourselves in an increasingly precarious position. And I do remember one thing from my college Latin: that the root of “precarious” is the Latin precare, to pray…
About the Author
Jay D. Homnick, commentator and humorist, is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator. He also writes for Human Events. Here he speaks at the Rally for Religious Freedom in Miami on June 8, 2012.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (21) | Leave a comment
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Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 12.28.11 @ 7:39AM
Before 2012 is out many will fall.
Yours is a good analysis but only covers a portion of the symptoms leading to a disease.
The real disease is that there is too much risk in the marketplace thanks to federal bureaucracies.
Until that risk is reduced there will be more implosion.
Aquanomics| 12.28.11 @ 10:34AM
There is always risk in the marketplace -- profit is the return to risk.
What Big Gov brings to the market is uncertainty, an altogether different kettle of fish. Entrepreneurs can assess and model risk, not so with uncertainty.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 12.28.11 @ 11:33AM
Uncertainty underlies all risk. That's why it's called risk.
TrueBlue| 12.29.11 @ 1:14PM
The problem is that most of the risk these days is undertaken by the federal government, using other people's money. They screw up, we foot the bill, whether we like it or not. That isn't how free market risk/reward is supposed to work, only the people who want to take the risk do so, and the only people affected are those with skin in the game, not the entire country.
THAT is where the problem lies. It's not too much risk in the marketplace, it's the massive amount of risk (and subsequent failure of the ventures in question) that has made it so bad.
The majority of entrepreneurs that make calculated risks are NOT getting involved because there is no way to accurately guess what the field will look like a few months from now, thanks to the federal government's habit of kicking the can down the road. The recent "tax break" extension being the most recent example. There is no guarentee that in 2 months they will pass another extension, or for how long, so people are not investing in new projects or expanding current ones. It's all about profit; if you can't even estimate how much profit you'll make off something, or if it will even turn a profit at all, you are not going to take the risk (well, most people won't anyway). Those estimates are based on current laws, and the expectated adjustments to those laws in the future. With Congress divided and the country in massive debt companies know that there are going to have to be massive changes at some point in the future to fix the problem.
Unfortunately, ALL of our elected officials are so concerned with getting re-elected that none of them are willing to show they have a pair and do what has to be done. Until we can get a series of politicians willing to do the right thing without worrying about being re-elected the government isn't going to change. Since that's unlikely it is up to the citizens to vote them out at every opportunity until they get the point. Sadly that is just as unlikely given the "Get mine" culture the majority of the younger generation have been raised in.
Glen H| 12.28.11 @ 8:09AM
I too will miss Syms. My wife let out a visible shudder when I pointed out the only other places I know to buy clothes are Walmart and BJs.
I must point out that my Syms had a sign in the store that sniffily claimed they did not deal in overstocks, instead they used their buying power to negotiate bargain prices directly with manufacturers.
Their demise seems to indicate this claim was largely BS.
Bob Miller| 12.28.11 @ 8:15AM
In Indy, where I live, there's a K&G store, part of a discount chain that functions much like Syms. See http://www.kgstores.com
If K&G can still exist, this article seems to have missed some relevant factor.
fmm| 12.28.11 @ 9:27AM
K&G's time is probably just a little further out. You miss the greater point of the article in that the economic woes (caused by restrictive federal government intervention) are erroding our economy and the ability of businesses to keep going at all levels. This is also happening to the durable goods and energy sectors with much worse effects on our everyday lives.
Bob Miller| 12.28.11 @ 10:36AM
I fully accept that our socialist administration is stifling economic activity, except among its crony supporters. However, some business owners and managers have better survival skills than others.
Cromulent| 12.28.11 @ 9:47AM
I'm not so sure that K&G has quite the same model. I don't remember Syms ever advertising specific deals - you had to come in to see what they had for what. And that was because the stock turned over fast and they didn't know what they might have the next week or month.
I go to K&G's website and they are advertising prices on the front page.
PCC| 12.28.11 @ 9:23AM
As an up-and-coming yuppie in 1980, I shopped in the original basement at Filene's in Summer Street in Boston.
Their semi-annual sales of Brooks Brothers suits and shirts were events that justified being late for work when the doors opened at 9:00 a.m. to race to the racks to get clothes at less than half the usual cost. A pre-sale visit to the floor salesmen the day before assured a right-fitting selection to poor guys like me who needed a break. God bless you, Mr. Filene!
SaraB| 12.28.11 @ 10:11AM
The only places I shop for clothes and gifts are Filene's and Steinmart. I haven't been to a mall in years. What a loss.
Moe Blotz| 12.28.11 @ 11:23AM
Salvation Army have some discount outlets where you can find pre-owned clothes and household items. Also try Rescue Mission, Vietnam Veterans of America, et cetera. My local Army-Navy store ran unadvertised discounts on winter clothes before Christmas that had people flocking to the store. We don't need big retailers to provide goods at affordable prices. When I was a yout, my mother told me to shop around.
Kingofthenet| 12.28.11 @ 12:05PM
There are Still these places on the low end Marshells and TJMAX, midrange Burlington Coat, Mens Warehouse and Joseph Bank. The Problem with Syms is like the problem with SOME dollar stores, sure you can START with over stock and surplus but like a smart place like Trader Joes and Dollar Tree sooner or later you need to have product MADE for you, surplus is too fickle.
Kingofthenet| 12.28.11 @ 12:07PM
Most of what went to Syms is going to Manufacturer Outlet stores, like the outlets in Seacaucus.
Ron| 12.28.11 @ 12:47PM
Another sad commentary on the economy is the announcement of the closure of 100+ Sears and Kmart stores...When those two are in retail trouble, you can bet the hard times are really coming.
And yet, the Lame Stream Marxist media is saying the jobs market and economy are picking up...
Bob Miller| 12.28.11 @ 12:57PM
Sears and Kmart have been in a downward spiral for years, including years that were good for their competitors.
mike| 12.28.11 @ 2:03PM
No big loss to the average as long as Michelle Obama can still wear her $2000 sun dress.
SF_Exile| 12.28.11 @ 7:15PM
Funny, I was just thinking about this the other day as I strolled through Loehmann's here in San Francisco. In some ways the store reminded me of the Basement, particularly the displays of costume jewelry or impulse items right near the registers but there was no zing in the air; that certain electricity of people enjoying the thrill of the hunt.
When I first moved to Boston I worked in luxury retail and we ladies were required to wear skirt suits or dresses and heels every day. While I made a decent wage it wasn't enough for me to shop at the more high end department stores (Filene's proper or Jordan Marsh) after I paid the bills.
The one thing about the downtown store that made it special was the Automatic Markdown Plan. Throughout the store were placards hanging from the ceiling, indicating a series of dates and the additional percentage of markdowns if the date on the back of the price tag was within the designated perameters. Usually the dates were just sales weeks apart. So if you found an item with a really old sales date, chances are you could get it for as much as 50% off the already discounted price! Some of us more savvy (some would say devious) shoppers would hide our treasures on another rack or section and keep our fingers crossed that the date police would miss it when retagging! I would go in every Sunday (my lone day off) to see what was up. I rarely left without something.
scythe| 12.28.11 @ 9:29PM
Oh come on. Filene's and Sym's have been wastelands for years. Their heyday was way back when and they have been selling outdated garbage for years with an occasional bargain here and there just to hook people into coming back on the off chance they'll find something. There are so many outlets now. In fact, with the economy in the shambles it's in, many high end stores are selling at cut rate prices.
Bob Grant | 12.28.11 @ 11:01PM
How does this relate to the article?
The article is about Obamanomics and the trickle down effect in the retail industry.
The fact that Obamanomics killed off this retail chain earlier than it would have died under normal circumstances has no bearing to your point.
POST American| 12.28.11 @ 11:00PM
---Beyond sad, the systematic 4 decades
of Wal-Mart-ing and franchise slumming
of the nation and the world.
RED China wampum, sports n' porn
---a 'fave' formula for cultural, economic,
political and moral destruction.
----------------------------KEEP ON GOIN' KIDDIES!