Word: circuitous
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...brutal time in retail - sales dropped 2.7% in December, the sixth straight month of declines, and 0.1% for 2008, the first annual dip on government records dating back to 1992. It was the worst holiday shopping season in 40 years. Name outlets like Circuit City and Linens 'n Things have gone bankrupt. Who's next? Predicting which companies will go under is a notoriously tricky business, and we won't try that. But here are five struggling retailers whose futures are definitely cloudy, with a look at how they hope to survive. (See the top 10 financial collapses...
Chukumba suggests that Office Depot merge with competitor Office Max in order to bulk up for the battle against Staples. He believes cost-cutting has hurt service, a problem that should never be dismissed. (For example, poor service contributed to Circuit City's demise). "Every time I go into an Office Depot," says Chukumba, "I see out-of-stock merchandise. To me, that indicates you don't have enough people...
...response to the pastor shortage is "yoking" two congregations to share a circuit-riding minister--and one salary. Along the Minnesota--North Dakota line, the yokes stretch thin. Jeff Gustafson, in the town of Warren, Minn., adds a degree of difficulty: he's Methodist, but one of his two yoked churches is Presbyterian. Another pastor travels 200 miles (about 320 km) every weekend to serve five churches. A botched three-pastor attempt to connect three already yoked churches (including Grue) with four more resulted in, among other things, shut-ins being overlooked and not receiving Communion for years...
...There have been films about Mumbai slums before - most notably Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay (1988), which enjoyed critical success on the festival and art-house circuit. But many believe the reason that Slumdog has been raking in awards is simply that Western audiences haven't seen many films like it before. "It is a good film, no doubt," says Manpreet Singh, a graphics designer based in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh. "The narrative style and the plot are interesting. But if I speak for Indians like me, there's nothing new in it for us. It's saturated...
...Lincoln Center Circuit City, Fried is prepared to clear the shelves. In a stockroom, he's got hundreds of additional discount stickers piled up - 40%, 50%, all the way through 80% off. Electronics are rarely discounted as desperately as, say, clothes, so 10-20% deals alone could move the merchandise. According to the liquidation firms, Circuit City sales are beating projections thus far. But with consumer spending so dismal, and so many stores desperate for dollars, Fried might need to shift those stickers to the sales floor. "It used to be that if you were doing a liquidation, you were...