Word: roebuck
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Bankers now face their most strenuous survival test since the Great Depression. Everywhere they turn, bankers are becoming mired in swamps of controversy and competition. Consumers, who in the past accorded bankers blind trust, are rebelling against skyrocketing fees, poor service and impersonal treatment. Such marketing powerhouses as Sears, Roebuck and Merrill Lynch are now financial bazaars that have attracted thousands of bank customers with lucrative new services. As they became free of much federal regulation, banks began engaging in suicidal price wars. Because of poor management, overzealous lending and some bad luck, commercial bank profits have been battered...
Edward Brennan went to work for Sears, Roebuck in 1956 as a salesman in the men's clothing department of the Madison, Wis., store. But he was not the kind of per son who would spend much time amid shirts and socks. Last week Brennan became Sears' president, chief operating officer and heir apparent to Chairman Edward R. Telling, 65, who is due to retire in December 1985. As head of the large merchandising group for the past four years, Brennan, 50, developed the successful strategy for sprucing up Sears' stodgy image by introducing new store designs...
...Sears move into financial services concerns some people. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker has said bluntly, "We don't want Sears, Roebuck in the banking business." He believes that nonbanks like Sears would have an advantage over a federally controlled bank or savings and loan. Bankers are worried about the power of a rival that has won such deep consumer loyalty. Outgoing Citicorp Chairman Walter Wriston has long complained that while Sears is free to enter his business, Citicorp is restricted by a mass of state and federal regulations...
...North Redwood, Minn., Sears bought a consignment of gold-filled pocket watches that had been rejected by a local jeweler, resold them to other station agents at a $2 profit apiece and founded the R.W. Sears Watch Co. A year later he added a watch repairman, Alvah C. Roebuck, to his staff. In 1888 came the initial catalog, containing only watches. In 1894, though, the first real Sears, Roebuck catalog appeared. The cover of its 507 pages blared: "Cheapest Supply House on Earth. Our Trade Reaches Around the World...
...respond to that attention. Sears gets letters all the time asking its advice on almost every human problem, from marital to technical. Politicians have even tried to get Sears on their side. In the 1930s a storied Georgia Governor told voters that they could count on "God Almighty, Sears, Roebuck and Eugene Talmadge...