New Merchandise Quotes

My dad is adorably optimistic, positive, pie-in-the-sky. He thinks every new song I write is my best. He sells T-shirts at my merchandise stands and hands out guitar picks to fans.

Skill in any performance whether it be in sports in playing the piano in conversation or in selling merchandise consists not in painfully and consciously thinking out each action as it is performed but in relaxing and letting the job do itself through you. Creative performance is spontaneous and ‘natural’ as opposed to self-conscious and studied.

Would that Christmas could just be, without presents. It is just so stupid, everyone exhausting themselves, miserably hemorrhaging money on pointless items nobody wants: no longer tokens of love but angst-ridden solutions to problems. (Hmm. Though must admit, pretty bloody pleased to have new handbag.) What is the point of entire nation rushing round for six weeks in a bad mood preparing for utterly pointless Taste-of-Others exam which entire nation then fails and gets stuck with hideous unwanted merchandise as fallout?

Sell them their dreams,' a woman radio announcer urged a convention of display men in 1923. 'Sell them what they longed for and hoped for and almost despaired of having. Sell them hats by splashing sunlight across them. Sell them dreams – dreams of country clubs and proms and visions of what might happen if only. After all, people don’t buy things to have things. They buy things to work for them. They buy hope – hope of what your merchandise will do for them. Sell them this hope and you won’t have to worry about selling them goods.

The encounter put me in the mood to shop...Babette and the kids followed me into the elevator, into the shops set along the tiers, through the emporiums and the department stores, puzzled but excited by my desire to buy. When I could not decide between two shirts, they encouraged me to buy both. When I said I was hungry they fed me pretzels, beer, souvlaki. The two girls scouted ahead, spotting things they thought I might want or need, running back to get me, to clutch my arms, to plead with me to follow. The...y were my guides to endless well-being...My family gloried in the event. I was one of them, shopping, at last. They gave me advice, badgered clerks on my behalf...We moved from store to store, rejecting not only items in certain departments, not only entire departments but whole stores, mammoth corporations that did not strike our fancy for one reason or another. There was always another store, three floors, eight floors...I shopped with reckless abandon. I shopped for immediate needs and distant contingencies. I shopped for its own sake, looking and touching, inspecting merchandise I had no intention of buying, then buying it...I began to grow in value and self-regard. I filled myself out, found new aspects of myself, located a person I'd forgotten existed. Brightness settled around me. I traded money for goods. The more money I spent, the less important it seemed. I was bigger than these sums. These sums poured off my skin like so much rain

Looking back on the fifty years since I first became aware of its flaws, the word that summarizes my feelings about Neoclassical economics today is that it is, as Marx once described the proto-Neoclassical Jean-Baptiste Say, ‘dull’ [...] Its vision of capitalism at its best is a system manifesting the harmony of equilibrium, where everyone is paid their just return (their ‘marginal product’), growth is occurring smoothly at a rate that maximizes social utility through time, and everyone is motivated by consumption – rather than accumulation and power – because, to quote Say, ‘the producers, though they have all of them the air of demanding money for their goods, do in reality demand merchandise for their merchandise’ [...] What a bland picture of the complex, changing world in which we live!

The political merchandisers appeal only to the weak­nesses of voters, never to their potential strength. They make no attempt to educate the masses into becoming fit for self-government; they are content merely to manipulate and exploit them. For this pur­pose all the resources of psychology and the social sciences are mobilized and set to work. Carefully se­lected samples of the electorate are given "interviews in depth." These interviews in depth reveal the uncon­scious fears and wishes most prevalent in a given so­ciety at the time of an election. Phrases and images aimed at allaying or, if necessary, enhancing these fears, at satisfying these wishes, at least symbolically, are then chosen by the experts, tried out on readers and audiences, changed or improved in the light of the information thus obtained. After which the political campaign is ready for the mass communicators. All that is now needed is money and a candidate who can be coached to look "sincere." Under the new dispen­sation, political principles and plans for specific action have come to lose most of their importance. The person­ality of the candidate and the way he is projected by the advertising experts are the things that really mat­ter. In one way or another, as vigorous he-man or kindly father, the candidate must be glamorous. He must also be an entertainer who never bores his audience. Inured to television and radio, that audience is accustomed to being distracted and does not like to be asked to con­centrate or make a prolonged intellectual effort. All speeches by the entertainer-candidate must therefore be short and snappy. The great issues of the day must be dealt with in five minutes at the most -- and prefera­bly (since the audience will be eager to pass on to something a little livelier than inflation or the H-bomb) in sixty seconds flat. The nature of oratory is such that there has always been a tendency among politicians and clergymen to over-simplify complex is­sues. From a pulpit or a platform even the most con­scientious of speakers finds it very difficult to tell the whole truth. The methods now being used to merchan­dise the political candidate as though he were a deo­dorant positively guarantee the electorate against ever hearing the truth about anything.

All new hires had to directly improve the outcome of the company. He wanted doers—engineers, developers, perhaps merchandise buyers, but not managers. “We didn’t want to be a monolithic army of program managers, à la Microsoft.

For you cannot live in New York City very long and not be conscious of the niceties of being rich—the city is, after all, an ecstatic exercise in merchandising—and one evening of his visit to Venezuela Sutherland sat straight up when he read a line of Santayana’s: “Money is the petrol of life.

The political merchandisers appeal only to the weaknesses of voters, never to their potential strength. They make no attempt to educate the masses into becoming fit for self-government; they are content merely to manipulate and exploit them. For this purpose all the resources of psychology and the social sciences are mobilized and set

Happiness is no longer a stroke of good luck, a moment of splendor wrung from the monotony of the everyday, it is our condition, our destiny. when the desirable becomes possible, it is immediately integrated into the category of the necessary. What used to be edenic is now ordinary. Social status is no longer determined soley by wealth or power, but also by appearance: it is not enough to be rich, you also have to look good, and this produces a new kind of discrimination and invidious comparison that is no less severe. There is a whole ethic of seeming to feel good about oneself that governs us and is supported by the smiling intoxication of advertising and merchandise.

The Mongols made culture portable. It was not enough to merely exchange goods, because whole systems of knowledge had to also be transported in order to use many of the new products. Drugs, for example, were not profitable items of trade unless there was adequate knowledge of how to use them. Toward this objective, the Mongol court imported Persian and Arab doctors into China, and they exported Chinese doctors to the Middle East. Every form of knowledge carried new possibilities for merchandising. It became apparent that the Chinese operated with a superior knowledge of pharmacology and of unusual forms of treatment such as acupuncture, the insertion of needles at key points in the body, and moxibustion, the application of fire or heat to similar areas. Muslims doctors, however, possessed a much more sophisticated knowledge of surgery, but, based on their dissection of executed criminals, the Chinese had a detailed knowledge of internal organs and the circulatory system. To encourage a fuller exchange of medical knowledge, the Mongols created hospitals and training centers in China using doctors from India and the Middle East as well as Chinese healers.

Dana daydreamed of one day being able to set her agenda at B.Altman with the same courage and tenacity as the woman who was now driving the VW while speaking animatedly about her travel plans for the near future. She would be journeying to India in search of exotic merchandise for the store’s Indian extravaganza, a lavish event planned by Ira Neimark and Dawn Mello to compete with Bloomingdale’s Retailing as Theater movement. The movement was the brainchild of Bloomingdale’s Marvin Traub, who staged elaborate presentations such as China: Heralding the Dawn of a New Era. Typical extravaganzas featured fashion, clothing, food, and art from various regions of the world. “I’ll bring back enough items to make Bloomingdale’s blush!” Nina said confidently. “And I’m not just talking sweaters, hats, and walking sticks. I’ll stop first in the Himalayas and prowl the Landour Bazaar.” Lynn Steward ~ A Very Good Life

He didn’t stop when they got there, though. Just slowed down, in his drag-ass, baby-smelling, style-free Subaru wagon, long enough to check out a banner announcing, in baseball-jersey script, the imminent opening for business, between the United Federation of Donuts and the King of Bling, of a trading card store called Mr. Nostalgia’s Neighborhood. Beyond the fourth grade or so, Archy had never taken much interest in baseball cards, but he could feel the underlying vibe of that particular madness. Although he knew he would never be able to set foot in that building again without breaking his heart, he understood that the new operation held promise, and in principle, at least, he approved. The merchandise was not the thing, and neither, for that matter, was the nostalgia. It was all about the neighborhood, that space where common sorrow could be drowned in common passion as the talk grew ever more scholarly and wild.

Malls in the late forties and early fifties were risky. Suburban customers still believed in making major purchases in the central business districts of cities and towns, where they expected to find the greatest selection of merchandise and the most competitive prices. After the tax laws of 1954, this changed. Shopping mall developers were among the biggest beneficiaries of accelerated depreciation, and they most often located projects where the older strips met the new interchanges of major projects. With the new tax write-offs, over 98 percent of malls made money for their investors.

Women Run Better (The Sonnet) Men only inherit the world, Women give birth to the world. If women can birth the world, women can run the world (far better than men). History reveals, war is a masculine merchandise, Whereas preserving life is an act of the feminine. Masculinity bears inclination for competitiveness, Femininity is synonymous with synergy and cohesion. That's why female leaders can step down more gracefully, making way for new minds at the helm, Whereas their male counterparts would rather take their position to the grave. Femininity is not a reproductive quality, Femininity is the source of all rejuvenation. No matter what gender or orientation you are, Nourish your femininity, and there'll be ascension.

Is it necessary to recall that the earth is not infinite, and that our civilization is close to having invaded all of it? The end of the world, this great terror of the Middle Ages, is destined to become a source of anguish again in another sense. It is no longer in time but in space that this terrestrial globe reveals itself as inextensible; and the deluge of civilized humanity already hurls itself at its limits, at its new Pillars of Hercules, these ones insurmountable. What are we going to do when soon we will no longer be able to count on external markets, Asian, African, to serve as a palliative or derivative for our discords, as outlets for our merchandise, for our instincts of cruelty, of pillage and of prey, for our criminality as well as for our overflowing birthrate? How will we manage to reestablish among ourselves a relative peace which has had as its condition for so long our conquering projection outside ourselves, far from ourselves?" -1902

Disney now unofficially tolerates hundreds of small online shops run by die-hard fans selling T-shirts, buttons, pins, patches, jewelry, and thousands more items that leverage Disney characters. These stores don’t pay Disney a dime in licensing fees. Why the pivot to tolerating knockoffs? Because Disney learned that fan-made, unlicensed twenty-five-dollar T-shirts drive their wearers to Disney parks, where they buy expensive entrance tickets and pass the day spending even more money. Another reason for Disney’s newfound tolerance: it has discovered the marketing research value from the hundreds of small knockoff shops. These shops turn out to be a vibrant source of ideas for new official Disney merchandise. In 2016 the online vendor Bibbidi Bobbidi Brooke came out with a hugely popular line of rose-gold sequined Mickey ears, something that had not occurred to the Disney licensors. So Disney copied the design, which sold out immediately in its official stores. Bibbidi Bobbidi Brooke was gracious, posting “always excited to see new merch offerings.” Her fans replied, “Yours will always be the original!!!” Everyone wins.

she feels lucky to have a job, but she is pretty blunt about what it is like to work at Walmart: she hates it. She’s worked at the local Walmart for nine years now, spending long hours on her feet waiting on customers and wrestling heavy merchandise around the store. But that’s not the part that galls her. Last year, management told the employees that they would get a significant raise. While driving to work or sorting laundry, Gina thought about how she could spend that extra money. Do some repairs around the house. Or set aside a few dollars in case of an emergency. Or help her sons, because “that’s what moms do.” And just before drifting off to sleep, she’d think about how she hadn’t had any new clothes in years. Maybe, just maybe. For weeks, she smiled at the notion. She thought about how Walmart was finally going to show some sign of respect for the work she and her coworkers did. She rolled the phrase over in her mind: “significant raise.” She imagined what that might mean. Maybe $2.00 more an hour? Or $2.50? That could add up to $80 a week, even $100. The thought was delicious. Then the day arrived when she received the letter informing her of the raise: 21 cents an hour. A whopping 21 cents. For a grand total of $1.68 a day, $8.40 a week. Gina described holding the letter and looking at it and feeling like it was “a spit in the face.” As she talked about the minuscule raise, her voice filled with anger. Anger, tinged with fear. Walmart could dump all over her, but she knew she would take it. She still needed this job. They could treat her like dirt, and she would still have to show up. And that’s exactly what they did. In 2015, Walmart made $14.69 billion in profits, and Walmart’s investors pocketed $10.4 billion from dividends and share repurchases—and Gina got 21 cents an hour more. This isn’t a story of shared sacrifice. It’s not a story about a company that is struggling to keep its doors open in tough times. This isn’t a small business that can’t afford generous raises. Just the opposite: this is a fabulously wealthy company making big bucks off the Ginas of the world. There are seven members of the Walton family, Walmart’s major shareholders, on the Forbes list of the country’s four hundred richest people, and together these seven Waltons have as much wealth as about 130 million other Americans. Seven people—not enough to fill the lineup of a softball team—and they have more money than 40 percent of our nation’s population put together. Walmart routinely squeezes its workers, not because it has to, but because it can. The idea that when the company does well, the employees do well, too, clearly doesn’t apply to giants like this one. Walmart is the largest employer in the country. More than a million and a half Americans are working to make this corporation among the most profitable in the world. Meanwhile, Gina points out that at her store, “almost all the young people are on food stamps.” And it’s not just her store. Across the country, Walmart pays such low wages that many of its employees rely on food stamps, rent assistance, Medicaid, and a mix of other government benefits, just to stay out of poverty. The

Richard Lovelace makes a compelling case that the best defense is a good offense. “The ultimate solution to cultural decay is not so much the repression of bad culture as the production of sound and healthy culture,” he writes. “We should direct most of our energy not to the censorship of decadent culture, but to the production and support of healthy expressions of Christian and non-Christian art.”10 Public protests and boycotts have their place. But even negative critiques are effective only when motivated by a genuine love for the arts. The long-term solution is to support Christian artists, musicians, authors, and screenwriters who can create humane and healthy alternatives that speak deeply to the human condition. Exploiting “Talent” The church must also stand against forces that suppress genuine creativity, both inside and outside its walls. In today’s consumer culture, one of the greatest dangers facing the arts is commodification. Art is treated as merchandise to market for the sake of making money. Paintings are bought not to exhibit, nor to grace someone’s home, but merely to resell. They are financial investments. As Seerveld points out, “Elite art of the New York school or by approved gurus such as Andy Warhol are as much a Big Business today as the music business or the sports industry.”11 Artists and writers have been reduced to “talent” to be plugged into the manufacturing process. That approach may increase sales, but it will suppress the best and highest forms of art. In the eighteenth century, the world nearly lost the best of Mozart’s music because the adults in the young man’s life treated him primarily as “talent” to exploit.

Success comes with an inevitable problem: market saturation. New products initially grow just by adding more customers—to grow a network, add more nodes. Eventually this stops working because nearly everyone in the target market has joined the network, and there are not enough potential customers left. From here, the focus has to shift from adding new customers to layering on more services and revenue opportunities with existing ones. eBay had this problem in its early years, and had to figure its way out. My colleague at a16z, Jeff Jordan, experienced this himself, and would often write and speak about his first month as the general manager of eBay’s US business. It was in 2000, and for the first time ever, eBay’s US business failed to grow on a month-over-month basis. This was critical for eBay because nearly all the revenue and profit for the company came from the US unit—without growth in the United States, the entire business would stagnate. Something had to be done quickly. It’s tempting to just optimize the core business. After all, increasing a big revenue base even a little bit often looks more appealing than starting at zero. Bolder bets are risky. Yet because of the dynamics of market saturation, a product’s growth tends to slow down and not speed up. There’s no way around maintaining a high growth rate besides continuing to innovate. Jeff shared what the team did to find the next phase of growth for the company: eBay.com at the time enabled the community to buy and sell solely through online auctions. But auctions intimidated many prospective users who expressed preference for the ease and simplicity of fixed price formats. Interestingly, our research suggested that our online auction users were biased towards men, who relished the competitive aspect of the auction. So the first major innovation we pursued was to implement the (revolutionary!) concept of offering items for a fixed price on ebay.com, which we termed “buy-it-now.” Buy-it-now was surprisingly controversial to many in both the eBay community and in eBay headquarters. But we swallowed hard, took the risk and launched the feature . . . and it paid off big. These days, the buy-it-now format represents over $40 billion of annual Gross Merchandise Volume for eBay, 62% of their total.65

The electronics effort faced even greater challenges. To launch that category, David Risher tapped a Dartmouth alum named Chris Payne who had previously worked on Amazon’s DVD store. Like Miller, Payne had to plead with suppliers—in this case, Asian consumer-electronics companies like Sony, Toshiba, and Samsung. He quickly hit a wall. The Japanese electronics giants viewed Internet sellers like Amazon as sketchy discounters. They also had big-box stores like Best Buy and Circuit City whispering in their ears and asking them to take a pass on Amazon. There were middlemen distributors, like Ingram Electronics, but they offered a limited selection. Bezos deployed Doerr to talk to Howard Stringer at Sony America, but he got nowhere. So Payne had to turn to the secondary distributors—jobbers that exist in an unsanctioned, though not illegal, gray market. Randy Miller, a retail finance director who came to Amazon from Eddie Bauer, equates it to buying from the trunk of someone’s car in a dark alley. “It was not a sustainable inventory model, but if you are desperate to have particular products on your site or in your store, you do what you need to do,” he says. Buying through these murky middlemen got Payne and his fledgling electronics team part of the way toward stocking Amazon’s virtual shelves. But Bezos was unimpressed with the selection and grumpily compared it to shopping in a Russian supermarket during the years of Communist rule. It would take Amazon years to generate enough sales to sway the big Asian brands. For now, the electronics store was sparely furnished. Bezos had asked to see $100 million in electronics sales for the 1999 holiday season; Payne and his crew got about two-thirds of the way there. Amazon officially announced the new toy and electronics stores that summer, and in September, the company held a press event at the Sheraton in midtown Manhattan to promote the new categories. Someone had the idea that the tables in the conference room at the Sheraton should have piles of merchandise representing all the new categories, to reinforce the idea of broad selection. Bezos loved it, but when he walked into the room the night before the event, he threw a tantrum: he didn’t think the piles were large enough. “Do you want to hand this business to our competitors?” he barked into his cell phone at his underlings. “This is pathetic!” Harrison Miller, Chris Payne, and their colleagues fanned out that night across Manhattan to various stores, splurging on random products and stuffing them in the trunks of taxicabs. Miller spent a thousand dollars alone at a Toys “R” Us in Herald Square. Payne maxed out his personal credit card and had to call his wife in Seattle to tell her not to use the card for a few days. The piles of products were eventually large enough to satisfy Bezos, but the episode was an early warning. To satisfy customers and their own demanding boss during the upcoming holiday, Amazon executives were going to have to substitute artifice and improvisation for truly comprehensive selection.

I, the driver of this car, that used to be Jim Ross, the teamster, and J.A. Ross and Co., general merchandise at Queen Centre, California, am now J. Arnold Ross, oil operator, and my breakfast is about digested, and I am a little too warm in my big new overcoat because the sun is coming out, and I have a new well flowing four thousand barrels at Los Lobos river, and sixteen on the pump at Antelope, and I'm on my way to sign a lease at Beach City, and we'll make up our schedule in the next couple of hours, and 'Bunny' is sitting beside me, and he is well and strong, and is going to own everything I am making, and follow in my footsteps, except that he will never make the ugly blunders or have painful memories that I have, but will be wise and perfect and do everything I say.

My Father, having liquidated the store, had some merchandise left, stuff which he could not dispose of in such a short span of time. We had a "servant's room" and there Father stashed cartons of scissors, combs, needles, all imported merchandise from Germany. Knives, scissors, needles, razor blades- all these goods were manufactured in the factories in Solingen and started to get scarcer since the war broke out. We actually lived on the proceeds of this liquidation for some time. However, it was going to run out and no new way of making a living was in sight. In the meantime, I started to teach English privately as there were many people, anxious to learn the language. Thus we got by, but times were uncertain and the future was troubling.

Moteefee, a platform founded in 2015 and that currently has 2,500 micro-retailers and entrepreneurs, recently raised 4.5 million euros that will be used for further business expansion. According to PaySpace Magazine, Moteefe has raised €4.5 million in a Series A round led by Gresham House and Force Over Mass Capital. The platform for on-demand production of merchandise aims to use the money for further expansion worldwide. What is more, it plans to launch new products for large retailers and scale its operations. Moteefe enables influencers and retailers to create custom and personalized merchandise and then sell them around the world. The Dutch company takes care of the printing, the store, the payment, the customer service, and the fulfillment, charging a commission for every sale. In 2019, Moteefe was the UK’s fastest-growing e-commerce company with revenue growth of over 9,000 percent between 2015 and 2018.

He wanted to show her a new piece of merchandise, have her guess what it was. He hadn't greeted Caroline yet, was now obliged to do so, for she was standing between him and where he thought the object he wanted was. "Excuse me.

1 My son, forget not thou my Law, but let thine heart keep my commandments. 2 For they shall increase the length of thy days and the years of life, and thy prosperity. 3 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them on thy neck, and write them upon the table of thine heart. 4 So shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man. 5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own wisdom. 6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy ways. 7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: but fear the Lord, and depart from evil. 8 So health shall be unto thy navel, and marrow unto thy bones. 9 Honor the Lord with thy riches, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase. 10 So shall thy barns be filled with abundance, and thy presses shall burst with new wine. 11 My son, refuse not the chastening of the Lord, neither be grieved with his correction. 12 For the Lord correcteth him, whom he loveth, even as the father doeth the child in whom he delighteth. 13 Blessed is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. 14 For the merchandise thereof is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof is better than gold. 15 It is more precious than pearls: and all things that thou canst desire, are not to be compared unto her. 16 Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and glory. 17 Her ways are ways of pleasure, and all her paths prosperity. 18 She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her, and blessed is he that retaineth her. 19 The Lord by wisdom hath laid the foundation of the earth, and hath established the heavens through understanding. 20 By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew. 21 My son, let not these things depart from thine eyes, but observe wisdom, and counsel. 22 So they shall be life to thy soul, and grace unto thy neck. 23 Then shalt thou walk safely by thy way: and thy foot shall not stumble. 24 If thou sleepest, thou shalt not be afraid, and when thou sleepest, thy sleep shall be sweet. 25 Thou shalt not fear for any sudden fear, neither for the destruction of the wicked, when it cometh. 26 For the Lord shall be for thine assurance, and shall preserve thy foot from taking. 27 Withhold not the good from the owners thereof, though there be power in thine hand to do it. 28 Say not unto thy neighbor, Go and come again, and tomorrow will I give thee, if thou now have it. 29 Intend none hurt against thy neighbor, seeing he doeth dwell without fear by thee. 30 Strive not with a man causeless, when he hath done thee no harm. 31 Be not envious for the wicked man, neither choose any of his ways. 32 For the froward is abomination unto the Lord: but his secret is with the righteous. 33 The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked: but he blesseth the habitation of the righteous. 34 With the scornful he scorneth, but he giveth grace unto the humble. 35 The wise shall inherit glory: but fools dishonor, though they be exalted.

Retailers are driving sales to new heights by moderating choice angst, offering a more limited selection of items. But there is a related angst issue in most stores: “Where is the …?” We refer to this as navigational angst. And there is no question that navigation can create significant frustration, whether it is navigating the shelf visually or finding one’s way around the store. There are at least five ways to reduce navigational angst, as follows: • Design the store and lay out the merchandise in a logical and intuitive way. • Provide signage or other navigational aids to assist the shopper. • Reduce the size of the store to reduce the need for navigation. • Remove visual barriers so shoppers can see the whole store.

All new hires had to directly improve the outcome of the company. He wanted doers—engineers, developers, perhaps merchandise buyers, but not managers. “We didn’t want to be a monolithic army of program managers, à la Microsoft. We wanted independent teams to be entrepreneurial,” says Neil Roseman. Or, as Roseman also put it: “Autonomous working units are good. Things to manage working units are bad.

The whole process was so intricate that the Medici Bank took to writing lengthy manuals instructing employees on how to structure it. In 1417, one employee of the bank, upon finishing a new draft of the manual, appended a word of advice at the end: “He who deals in exchanges and he who deals in merchandise is always anxious and beset by worries. I will instead give you a recipe for lasagna and macaroni.

We created and registered a new brand, the ‘Barça Toons’, a cartoon version of all the players in the first team. We started using them to promote match attendance and they ended up having their own range of merchandise. In order to increase its dissemination and legitimacy as a club brand, we started the tradition of giving every new player his own Barça Toon at every presentation press conference.

Colt’s meth business owed a lot to Walmart. Many addicts stole merchandise then redeemed it for gift cards. Colt got a lot of these from his customers, back when the chain gave gift cards for exchanged new items even without a receipt. One of his customers obtained a key to the Walmart laptop cage from a friend who worked at the store. Colt took in several stolen laptops, as well as flat-screen TVs that weren’t under lock and key at Walmart. Some of his customers piled the TVs into their cars so fast that the screens broke. Colt would give them next to nothing in dope. Then he’d buy the same TV from Walmart, return with the broken TV and his new receipt and get a refund.

So for the first time since I had begun retailing in 1945, I was beginning to back off from the business. I was getting slightly less involved in the day-to-day decisions and leaning a bit more on Ron Mayer and Ferold Arend—our two executive vice presidents. I was still chairman and CEO. Ferold, at age forty-five, ran merchandising, while Ron Mayer, who was only forty, ran finance and distribution. To handle the explosive growth, we were bringing on new people in the general office. Ron brought in a lot of people to handle data processing and finance and distribution. What happened then is the one period in Wal-Mart’s history that I am still the least comfortable talking about today.

The next hurdle is the recognition that we have many deeply ingrained habit patterns that take time—a lot of time—to change. At first the typical neophyte is sure that he or she has a tremendous capacity and will grow more quickly than others. Then the sobering realization dawns that the degree of self-transformation is equal to the effort made. If neophytes have persisted thus far, they will almost inevitably encounter doubt (samshaya)—doubt about their own capacity; doubt about their teacher; doubt about the efficacy of the teaching. It is not far from the truth to say that practitioners who do not befriend doubt are bound to become self-deluded. If there really is no doubt or self-delusion, then they are quite simply enlightened. Another obstacle, not often identified, is the fact that practitioners’ karmic tendencies (read unconscious or semiconscious habit patterns) are magnified because awareness is enhanced through regular practice. This can be likened to a bright searchlight shining deep into the well of the mind. In the depth of the unconscious reside all kinds of unpleasant realities that get flushed out by steady application to self-inspection and self-understanding. At times, the unconscious materials that drift into the conscious mind seem overwhelming, and then it becomes clear that spiritual life is a form of brinkmanship. The Indic tradition speaks of the razor-edged path. Gradually spiritual practitioners learn to overcome their intrinsic materialism (i.e., constantly thinking in terms of the visible reality only). There is a progressive loosening of the ego knot or “self-contraction” (ātma-samkoca) by which the ordinary individual anxiously seeks to hold everything together. Spiritual practitioners learn to be humorous about everything, including themselves. Life is seen from a new perspective: as a strange play in which we are willy-nilly involved and which we can either misunderstand and suffer or understand and transcend even while being fully engaged in its drama. Practitioners must prevail over spiritual materialism—the false sense of accumulating “higher” experiences. They can realize inner freedom only to the extent that even the goal of liberation is renounced. Liberation, or enlightenment, is not a thing to be attained or acquired. It is living in the moment from the most profound understanding and without egoic attachment to anything. Those who parade their extraordinary spiritual accomplishments in front of others are possibly the least illumined of all. They merely substitute material commodities for “spiritual” merchandise. The Indic heritage knows of many adepts who after years of intense practice achieved a high state of consciousness or astounding paranormal ability only to promptly plunge from grace. The higher the adept’s elevation, the steeper the drop into oblivion and misery. Therefore the authorities of Yoga ever admonish practitioners to be circumspect, to keep their attainments to themselves, to focus on the cultivation of moral integrity, understanding, self-transcendence, and not least service to others.

The 1970s and 1980s were a period of consolidation for yoga in the West with the establishment and expansion of a significant number of dedicated schools and institutes. The period also saw a further, and enduring, rapprochement of yoga with the burgeoning New Age movement, which in many ways represents a new manifestation of yoga's century-old association with currents of esotericism. By the mid-1990s posture-based yoga had become thoroughly acculturated in many urban centers in the West. The 1990s "boom" turned yoga into an important commercial enterprise, with increasing levels of merchandising and commodification.

and struggle to claim merchandise they would otherwise disdain. Such behavior brings to mind the “feeding frenzy” phenomenon of wild, indiscriminate eating among animal groups. Commercial fishermen exploit the phenomenon

Reinforcing the importance of this opportunity, Immelt added: “The Industrial Internet is a win-win for GE and our customers. Our offerings will increase GE’s services margins and boost organic industrial growth, with the potential to drive as much as $20 billion in annual savings across our industries.” There is a word missing in these statements that marks the difference between a great value proposition and a successful ecosystem: partners. This absence is what separates a service business that relies on value-added resellers to move merchandise, and an ecosystem that aligns partners to create new value in a structured way.

Although their number in Recife was only somewhat greater than in Amsterdam, relative to the latter’s Christian population the difference was huge. In 1640, Amsterdam’s Jews numbered less than 2 percent of the populace, while those in Recife constituted 30–40 percent of the white population. Given their merchandising bent, “Christian merchants soon found themselves reduced to the role of spectators of the Israelite business.”25 However, once they learned Portuguese and no longer needed the Jews as intermediaries, their leaders objected:

Since little merchandise was available in the stores, because of the war, Romanians bought whatever they could buy cheaply from desperate Jews. I remember, I had a Japanese long house dress, with a zipper. That was a very exotic-looking dress in Europe. I had worn it at the masked ball on New Year's eve in 1940-41. Yet during the war years that was sold too, we needed food daily, we needed fire wood for cooking and heating.

AS STRATEGY SESSIONS BEGAN IN HAWTHORNE, THE Handlers made a brilliant tactical move. They commissioned a toy study from Ernest Dichter, Ph.D., director of the Institute for Motivational Research in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. The study cost a staggering $12,000 and took six months to complete, but when it was finished the charge seemed low. Dichter had masterminded a cunning campaign to peddle Barbie. Dichter was already a legend when the Handlers approached him. Quoted on nearly every page of Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders, a bestseller in 1957, Dichter was hailed as a marketing Einstein—an evil Einstein, but an Einstein nonetheless. He pioneered what he called "motivational research," advertising's newest, hippest, and, in Packard's view, scariest trend—the manipulation of deep-seated psychological cravings to sell merchandise.

Hover through the Fog and Filthy Air Nursery school for demons Getting to know yourself through crime Brain music like a wounded ambulance praying in tongues Telepathic merchandise A rhapsodic interrogation of love Another haunted customer Soothing you to sleep and infesting your dreams with mechanical tarantulas Carnivorous mirage The night that hides inside the night you know The night that knows you The fierce bliss of the holy glint The lethal myth you carried all your life The voice within my voice the only one I listen to was never born Sometimes everything’s my child Emotions are deployed in glassy air Lots of wondering what to do in the empty lobby and the all night laundromat The diamond swimming in the noisy light A little origami holy ghost The rain goes on softly not wanting to know my side of the story Bloodstreams running with whispering stars A loose confederation of feral children without human language living in ruined cathedrals on the moon pledging allegiance to the buildings and how they appear the grey noise of the interstate new understandings of madness and terrible love half buried in leaves The trapeze artist of the abyss Her discipline Her ascetic silhouette The way we never see her face no matter how she twists

A few steps from the St. Charles Hotel, in New Orleans, brings you to and across Canal Street, the central avenue of the city, and to that corner where the flower-women sit at the inner and outer edges of the arcaded sidewalk, and make the air sweet with their fragrant merchandise.

Culture, in John Kotter’s model, is not changed until the end of the change process. It is that challenging and that time consuming. As difficult as changing behavior is, changing church culture is even more difficult. We only need to return to Nehemiah to learn this painful reality. While he was able to lead the transforming of a wall, though he tried, he was unable to lead the transformation of the culture. A wall was constructed, but the culture was never transformed. After the wall was rebuilt and Ezra read the Law for the first time since the captivity in Babylon, the people responded to God in worship. In Nehemiah 9, they confessed their sins to the Lord. They admitted that their hearts turned from God, in part, because they forgot His great and gracious works for them on their behalf (v. 17). After their confession, they committed in a signed vow to be faithful to the Lord in a few very specific areas: they wouldn’t intermarry with others to preserve their Hebrew faith (10:30), they wouldn’t profane the Sabbath with merchandise (10:31), and they would give to the work of the temple (10:33). But the people were unable to live up to their commitments. When Nehemiah returned to Persia, as he promised, the people miserably violated each of their specific vows (Neh. 13). They were no longer valuing the work of the temple. The Levites, those who served in the temple, had to find another vocation because their needs weren’t met through the giving of God’s people. Work was occurring on the Sabbath again, and the people were intermarrying again, causing God’s people to not know the language of Judah. The people failed in every one of their vows. They couldn’t keep even one. There wasn’t one glimmer of hope, not one indication that they could be faithful to the Lord. Nehemiah begs God to remember him, and then the book ends. Just like that. The book ends with a painful picture of our inability to follow through on our bold commitments to the Lord. We’re left with the humbling realization that we can’t keep our vows. We’re utterly incapable, in our own merit, of delivering on our commitments. The abrupt and bitter ending is intentional. The written Word is shepherding us to our need for the living Word—for Jesus. What the people in the book of Nehemiah needed, and what we find in Christ, is a new covenant written on our hearts (Jer. 31:33). The ending of the book of Nehemiah is both humbling and hopeful for leaders in God’s Church. It is humbling because we understand how challenging it is to cultivate culture. It is hopeful because of Jesus. Because of God’s grace, because He replaces hearts of stone with hearts of flesh, we can have great hope for our church cultures. Who better to understand transformation than the people of God who have been transformed? Can anyone better than Christ-followers understand what it means to be changed? We are transformed people.

Fines, often in the thousands of dollars, are assessed against many prisoners when they are sentenced. There are twenty-two fines that can be imposed in New Jersey, including the Violent Crime Compensation Assessment (VCCA), the Law Enforcement Officers Training & Equipment Fund (LEOT), and Extradition Costs (EXTRA). The state takes a percentage each month out of a prisoner’s wages to pay for penalties. It can take decades to pay fines. Some 10 million Americans owe $50 billion in fees and fines because of their arrest or imprisonment, according to a 2015 report by the Brennan Center. If a prisoner who is fined $10,000 at sentencing relies solely on a prison salary, he or she will owe about $4,000 after making monthly payments for twenty-five years. Prisoners often leave prison in debt to the state. And if they cannot continue to make regular payments—difficult because of high unemployment among ex-felons—they are sent back to prison. High recidivism is part of the design. Most of the prison functions once handled by governments have become privatized. Corporations run prison commissaries and, since the prisoners have nowhere else to shop, often jack up prices by as much as 100 percent. Corporations have taken over the phone systems and grossly overcharge prisoners and their families. They demand exorbitant fees for money transfers from families to prisoners. And corporations, with workshops inside prisons, pay little more than a dollar a day to prison laborers. Food and merchandise vendors, construction companies, laundry services, uniform companies, prison equipment vendors, cafeteria services, manufacturers of pepper spray, body armor, and the array of medieval-looking instruments used for the physical control of prisoners, and a host of other contractors feed like jackals off prisons. Prisons, in America, are big business.

And around this hub, its center enclosed by the rounded rectangle of the elevated Loop tracks, clustered the dozens of individual neighborhoods that together formed this huge and diverse metropolis. Here was Little Poland, Little Italy, the Black Belt, and Greektown, the silk-stocking districts and the New World shtetls, each one of which—whether made up of crumbling tenements, luxurious mansions, or neat little worker cottages—stood in many ways apart from the others, a self-contained enclave with its own ethos and mores. From this height, one could also see the engines that kept this collection of urban villages in operation—the interlocking feedlots and slaughterhouses of the stockyards district to the southwest, the enormous steel mills to the far south, the reaper works, the railcar factories, the gasworks, the warehouses and merchandise marts of the retailing trade, and the endless railyards full of trains that connected the city to the rest of the world. To call this conglomeration by a single name—Chicago—seemed wildly inappropriate. It was less like a city than a world unto itself, bringing together the artifacts and energies of a vast multitude.

You don't have to tell me, but since we're friends, you shouldn't mind. Is your dick cut? I mean, I can ask, right? Your dick's pretty big? How big? You're putting me on! Rubber comes in sizes! Like T-shirts? I've seen colors and flavors, but sizes? Spill--you a one-rubber or two-rubber man? And your madam satisfied with Hindustani dick wrapped in two sheets of latex? I knew it, haraami! Now we're talking! No, I don't use condoms. Don't need them. I mean, sure, I fool around; I like Filipina pussy, know what I'm saying. They like singing kar-o-kee and they like men in charge. I've got a Karachi buddy who gets me a Pakistani discount. His merchandise, always clean, so rubbers no need. I don't cum inside though. I'm perfectly satisfied watering the tip of the rose bush.

Then came a rather surreal exchange about Joy Division T-shirts, with us proudly proclaiming we did not sell merchandise because we didn’t believe in self-promotion of any kind, preferring to let the music speak for itself. ‘Rubbish,’ boomed Scotty. ‘How come wherever I go I see Joy Division and New Order T-shirts, worn and for sale, eh?’ Now, we had no idea where he was going to see these things, but we were all speechless anyway. He continued, ‘I don’t believe you, and will be fining you accordingly.’ So we would get fined £10,000 for not doing our own T-shirts.

The phrase ‘liberal socialism’ has a strange sound to many who are accustomed to current political terminology. The word ‘liberalism’ unfortunately has been used to smuggle so many different kinds of merchandise and has been so much the preserve of the bourgeoisie in the past, that today a socialist has difficulty bringing himself to use it. But I do not wish to propose a new party terminology here. I wish only to bring the socialist movement back to its first principles, to its historical and psychological origins, and to demonstrate that socialism, in the last analysis, is a philosophy of liberty.