With their low margins, they can't afford to have unprofitable stores. It could destroy the profitability of the chain.

Overall, the moderate-priced stores such as J.C. Penney, Sears and Wal-Mart had good traffic levels. We think luxury sales were probably flat this past weekend because more people said they decided to go away on vacation before Christmas this year than last year. So this could have impacted spending on other high-end items.

This type of a margins tax would be paid whether you were profitable or not. Unprofitable businesses would just become more unprofitable.

The town they entered differed little from any other he had been in lately. The ubiquitous Perkins, Applebees, Buffalo Wild Wings, Qdoba, and Panda Express were situated around the central hub that was Walmart, like appendages of some spider or octopus. Like some metastasizing tumor that threatened to overwhelm the town.

I would say that the first quarter of next year probably has already been doomed by this episode,

[They] say that they're going to give their child a mutual fund contribution or some kind of gift through a stock investment.