To go head-to-head with a 10,000-pound gorilla is nonsense. It's like Switzerland declaring war on the United States. That, of course, doesn't work, ... Wal-Mart ate Kmart's lunch.

in nonsense is strength

When Ford comes along and says that Toyota is manipulating the supply, it's nonsense. Toyota developed it all. Toyota does a lot of it in-house. Someone is pointing a finger at Bill Ford saying, Why don't you make more hybrids? So he has to point the finger at someone else.

These two companies gave a must-have lesson for all retailers, Sharper Image combed the globe for unusual and exciting products that weren't run-off-the-mill ... Retailers made the mistake of taking customers for granted and the payoff came two weeks ago in much weaker Christmas sales because of ho-hum kind of merchandise.

One word - dismal. There's nothing else to be said but absolutely dismal.

They feel they no longer need to go broke when they go shopping,