Sears store closings, sign of major economic change

Gordon L. Weil

If you are reading this online and not in a print newspaper, you can easily understand why Sears and other retailers are closing stores across the country.

People purchase more services than goods. News is a service. You can get it online and avoid the need to pick up a paper at the local store.

How newspapers work economically is changing quickly, hardly leaving time for publishers, advertisers and readers to adjust. Just last week, one of the largest newspaper chains filed for bankruptcy.

You went to Sears for a screwdriver or a refrigerator. But you don't go to a department store for services like health care or retirement living, among the fastest growing markets.

Both the number of newspapers and of retail stores is declining. The Sears store in Brunswick is closing, leaving only one of the company's stores in Maine. If Sears can't make it in the country's most rural state, it seems likely soon to disappear.

In the 1970s, I wrote the unofficial, corporate biography of Sears, Roebuck. It turned out to have been published just at the high point of the company's history. The potential loss of the chain's retail dominance was evident even then, but it failed to adjust.

Just as the Sears catalog brought a huge array of products into the most remote homes, the Internet has expanded the range of products and services and reaches almost all homes and businesses.

Rural Free Delivery, once a revolutionary innovation, was long ago replaced by the USPS as the final delivery arm of private companies like Fedex and UPS.

Amazon is the new Sears. Walmart, with many stores, is moving quickly to develop the ability to compete electronically. Ordering online and picking up at the store seems ready to grow. Electronic retailing should keep gaining.

Yet it seems a bit too simple to conclude that electronic shopping is replacing the 9000 stores that closed last year and the 1200 closings already announced this year. Online sales are only 11 percent of the total retail market.

The rapid rise of online sales represents change, occurring at a fast pace in the economy as in many other aspects of life. The reasons for the decline of retail stores, especially smaller shops, go well beyond the ease of shopping with your thumbs on a smart phone.

The change in the distribution of income impacts the retail market. If people have less to spend, they reduce their shopping. That's evident these days with people holding onto their cars much longer before buying a new model.

While national income has risen, the gain has not gone to the middle class shopper who is the principal customer of retail stores. The middle class contribution to the national economy is steadily decreasing.

Middle-class Americans have less money to spend shopping on extra items, even though they spend all they make.

Retail merchants focus on people with less to spend. The huge growth of "dollar" stores is a reflection of the market moving to provide inexpensive products to shoppers of limited means.

Most of the income gains have gone to the top 10 percent of the population. They do not spend all of their added income on shopping. Instead, they save a large part of their income. It goes into investments, which have flourished.

The combined effect of the changing distribution of income, revealing a shift from the middle class to the wealthy, and the rise of online sales has hit companies like Sears.

There's an increasing recognition of the growing income and wealth gaps between the rich and everybody else. If that seems unfair, political candidates are ready to offer proposals to boost taxes on the wealthy.

Changing income distribution could affect government funding and reduce the exploding national debt, but it could also have a less obvious economic impact. Tax relief for the middle class, if funded by higher taxes on the wealthy, could allow the middle class to recover some if its lost purchasing power.

Politicians promise "jobs, jobs, jobs," but, with the current full employment economy, having a job does not alone guarantee prosperity. And retail jobs are being lost when stores are forced to close as they lose their markets.

Tax cuts boosting the wealthy and higher tariffs, on goods but not services are tools from the past, designed to keep the economy growing. The private sector may create new opportunities, but it may not add new jobs.

Sears failed to adjust to a changing economy and to the rapid pace of change. It sends a warning to the broader economy and to government that anticipating change and adjusting to an electronic, service-oriented economy is urgently needed.

The closing of the Sears store in Brunswick is not an isolated event. It is a sign of major economic change that will be ignored at peril to the economy.

Rights advocates versus public health: voting on vaccination

Gordon L. Weil

On March 3, Maine will vote to decide whether to repeal a new law that removes religious and philosophical exemptions from the requirement that schoolchildren must be vaccinated.

Beyond its implications for public health and religious rights, the vote raises fundamental issues about the role of government and personal liberty.

The U.S. is proud of its emphasis on individual liberty. The underlying purpose of the Constitution is to establish a government that protects individual rights.

In the extreme, the American system would favor as little government as possible to assure that the natural rights of each person would not be limited or eliminated.

Of course, the system could not operate to protect individual rights unless the government had real powers. The government represents the interest of the community, as defined by representatives elected by the people.

In short, the system depends on a balance between individual rights and the common good. The balance is decided democratically.

Most democracies in the world favor the community interests of citizens. The U.S., almost alone, places more weight on the individual rights than on the community. For example, almost no other country protects rights as extensively as the First Amendment.

The fundamental function of government is to ensure public health and safety. It adopts laws to carry out this responsibility, ranging from police powers to measures to prevent the spread of disease.

The Constitution ensures the right of people to practice their religion or no religion according to each person's beliefs. It also bans religions from controlling the laws, though lawmakers may be influenced by their beliefs.

Does that mean the government cannot require individual action if people believe they have a guaranteed right, particularly a religious right?

If so, can the ability of a duly elected government to protect public health or safety be overruled by the right of individuals to follow their beliefs?

The constitutional thinking must have been that people's rights can be limited if they harm the rights of others. Protecting rights should not amount to giving some people higher rights than others.

No right can be absolute. It must take account of its effect on others.

That is the logic of the vaccination law. It says that, whatever your personal rights protecting your beliefs, you cannot block a proven measure that protects others in your community from the risk of serious illness or death.

Opponents of the law dishonestly try to make it seem that it was written to increase the profits of major drug manufacturers. Their gains from selling vaccines are a tiny share of their profits. But the threat of contagious disease to public health is large.

The coronavirus threat apparently arose out of a single market in Wuhan, China. It now affects the entire world and people have died. Preventing the spread of such disease is worthwhile.

But the vaccination debate is part of a far greater issue. The U.S. provides less support for health care and many other human needs than do other democracies. It avoids joint action that could both protect rights and take advantage of a sense of community to promote public well-being.

Opponents of more community action by the government claim that its supporters are socialists who want big government to override individual freedom. Socialism is a dirty word, mainly because the Soviet Union, an outright dictatorship, called itself socialist.

Some voters have been convinced that government action on health care or education or gun safety threatens their individual rights. They see a pure either-or choice.

They worry about excessive government control. Is that the case in Canada or Great Britain? It must be the case, they believe, in Scandinavian countries. What about Switzerland, a country as conservative as the U.S.?

Those who oppose policies designed to benefit all of society out of fear that they will lose their rights gain something and lose something. They may be able to do just as they wish, without regard for others. But they may later suffer when others assert their rights.

Opponents suggest that a free society will produce the best possible results. In a free market, people will only buy from companies that treat their workers well. Perhaps only a few people would be at risk if some refuse vaccinations.

All of this sounds simple, if not simplistic. But it is just what is at stake in the vaccination debate.

The divisiveness now prevalent in American society is the product of people unwilling to compromise for the community good. The risk is that we insist on our rights and ignore our community until we must all pay the price.

Collins not the "deciding vote" on Kavanaugh confirmation

Gordon L. Weil

The biggest issue in the campaign against Sen. Susan Collins may be her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.

An increasingly conservative Supreme Court could reverse the Roe v. Wade abortion decision. Opponents of the Kavanaugh appointment believe he would vote to overturn Roe, ending federal protection of a woman's right to choose.

Recently, the Bangor Daily News reprinted an earlier report about Collins' decision not to oppose Kavanaugh's confirmation. This second look reveals the importance of the issue in this year's Senate campaign.

"After Senator Collins cast the deciding vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh, her vote has remained fixed in Vacationland’s collective consciousness," the Christian Science Monitor has reported.

NARAL, the leading pro-choice group, focused on "the definitive nature" of Collins' "deciding vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation."

Collins might have reasonably opposed the nominee as unsuitable for a seat on the Court, based on his undisciplined outburst at his confirmation hearing, but she approved him. She said she was reassured by his recognition that Roe v. Wade was "settled" law.

Pro-choice voters are gravely disappointed by Collins, who had a generally favorable record on abortion-related issues, for seeming to abandon her past views to support President Trump's conservative nominee.

But her opponents are not correct when they say Collins cast the deciding or decisive vote to confirm Kavanaugh. That may have been the chosen role of another senator. Here's the story.

Of the 100 senators, there were 51 Republicans, 47 Democrats and two independents who vote with the Democrats. One of the independents is Maine's Angus King.

Before Collins announced her position, 97 senators had announced their choice. The count was 49-48 in favor of confirmation.

GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, having just decided, then announced she would vote against the nomination. At that point, the vote was 49-49 on the nomination.

Only Collins and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia had not yet announced their votes.

After a lengthy explanation, Collins revealed she would vote to confirm. The vote stood at 50-49 in favor.

Minutes later, Manchin announced he, too, would vote for Kavanaugh, effectively canceling the effects of Murkowski's move. Kavanaugh was confirmed.

(In effect, the vote was 51-49 for confirmation. In fact, the final vote was 50-48. Murkowski withheld her vote as a courtesy to a fellow Republican favoring confirmation, who was unable to be present.)

If Collins had opposed Kavanaugh, the vote would have stood at 49-50 against. If Manchin had then joined her, the matter would have been settled at 49-51, and Manchin would have blocked Kavanaugh.

If Manchin had voted to confirm with Collins opposed, the vote would have been 50-50. Under the Constitution, Vice President Mike Pence would have broken the tie to confirm Kavanaugh.

To believe that Collins would cast the deciding vote, you have to believe that Manchin would follow her lead. He didn't. Even if Collins knew how he intended to vote, she could not have blocked confirmation; especially when he chose to vote last.

Manchin was facing a tough re-election in what has become one of the most Republican states. He was one of only three Democrats who had voted for Neil Gorsuch, Trump's earlier Supreme Court nominee and equally a concern on abortion, as had Collins.

If he had voted with the Democrats against Kavanaugh, he would have also assured the confirmation, by leaving it to Pence. The GOP would get its judge, but he would not have cast the decisive vote. His vote for confirmation produced the same result but got him more attention back home.

If there was a senator who cast the deciding vote on Kavanaugh, it was Joe Manchin.

Here's an historic parallel. In the 1868 Senate trial of President Andrew Johnson, the Republicans failed to convict him by a single vote. Seven Republicans voted to acquit. Any one of them might have been decisive, but the only one who history counts as decisive is the one who voted last.

Democrat Manchin's tactic paid off, and he was narrowly re-elected in his overwhelmingly GOP state. Collins remains vulnerable in Maine for her vote.

On March 4, the Supreme Court will hear a case about a Louisiana law that would effectively outlaw abortions in that state. If Kavanaugh hints at an anti-abortion position at that hearing or in the Court decision, expected by the end of June, he could damage Collins' credibility.

If the Court dodges the issue on technical grounds, it might seem to be avoiding it in an election year. If it firmly rejects the Louisiana law with Kavanaugh's vote, Collins could get a boost.

Although Collins did not, in fact, cast the decisive vote on Kavanaugh, he could cast a decisive vote affecting her.