Passing notes is apparently the way to go in Washington.
Kansas congressman Jerry Moran didn’t miss a chance this week to invite ex-Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee for Agriculture Secretary, to visit the Sunflower State.
Moran said during a meeting, “I extended a written invitation” to Vilsack “so he could discuss issues with our farmers and ranchers in the state.”
Of course, Moran could have had good reason for making it a written invitation. Perhaps he included directions on how to get to Kansas.
There’s a recurring incident that we chuckle about in the Business Today cockpit every so often.
You make a call to a retailer for information. The reply comes across like a winter cold front: “We’re not interested in participating in any story.” Sometimes you get a bonus: “Corporate won’t be interested, either.”
Although cooperative retailers greatly outnumber that level of rudeness, it happens surprisingly often.
Now, left-leaning America-hating scalawags that we media types are (Warning: sarcasm alert), we nonetheless find humor in these little beatdowns.
Because, media folks have money. We’re consumers, too – consumers who take note of these little eruptions of rudeness and cross these businesses off our shopping list.
According to a Christmas retailing survey by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, independent retailers fared better – relatively speaking – than chain stores during the 2008 holidays.
The survey of 1,142 independent retailers, selling everything from books, toys to clothing, found that independent store sales were down 5 percent this Christmas season.
That’s bad news – but not as bad as Barnes & Noble, down 7.7 percent; Best Buy, down 6.5 percent; Borders, down 14 percent; J.C. Penney, down 8.1 percent; Macy’s, down 7.5 percent; The Gap, down 14 percent; and Williams-Sonoma, down 24.2 percent.
Overall, the Commerce Department says sales were down a record 9.8 percent in December over December 2007.