Howard Davidowitz is our favorite retail analyst.
Appearance versus Reality is the theme in the Enron Nation.
And Winners of the Retail Apocalypse: Amazon, Walmart, Kohls and Dollar Tree.
Personally I like Costco, Amazon, and Lowes, because even thought they may not have the very lowest price, they provide exceptional value and a little something 'extra.'
David is probably right, because She-Who-Shops says he is, and is a hands-on expert.
"The more power a government has the more it can act arbitrarily according to the whims and desires of the elite, and the more it will make war on others and murder its foreign and domestic subjects. Power will achieve its murderous potential. It simply waits for an excuse, an event of some sort, an assassination, a massacre in a neighboring country, an attempted coup, a famine, or a natural disaster, to justify the beginning of murder en masse."
R. J. Rummel, Mass Murder and Genocide, 1994