I get skewered, but in this case maybe Marx was right? I thought they had too many stores. In my neck of the woods, they had three within 10 minutes driving?

This company seemed to be having trouble even before the Internet. They seemed to run the stores like it was still the 50's?(demanding ties, while paying minimum wage=grouchy employees). The website was always terrible. Marketing was terrible. Seemed top heavy with assistant regional managers, corporate big wigs, etc.

My last time shopping there I bought a tube if Artic 5 to reball a faulty HP graphic chip. The price was more than 2-3 online competitors price. The nice guy helping me said, "You are not are typical customer." I knew what he meant, and I was sad. I walked past the garbage near the front entrance, the dissy array of phone plans, dodging marketing stands, and said goodby to the only lonely employee." I knew that would be my last time in a Radio Shack. (The only reason I can imagine why they loaded up the front of the stores with--crap, is because maybe we don't tinker as much as I want to think? I know you people do, but the average consumer--I've seen so many people roll their eyes when I tell them I can fix it. "Just buy a new one!" As to crafts, like sewing and leather work--I think people will get back into it, but right now it's just easier to buy because their is a lack of time. I will never forget the neck Ties and the perpetual help wanted sign though.

Marx was right, in the same way Malthus was right. Excessive growth can lead to collapse of individual companies or communities. Both failed to appreciate that in globally distributed, heterogenous, decentralized economies not everything collapses at the same time, and new things grow in the spaces left by the old.