Fundies Need To Learn Economics 101

[Peas n carrots]

Because I'm a sucker for punishment, I am on the American Family Association emailing list. I got this in the mail today:

J.C. Penney stock crashes with news of gay marriage support

Stock rated "junk" status, loses 50% since February, 350 layoffs at home office

July 17, 2012

Dear Friend,

Simply put, people are not shopping at J.C. Penney. AFA and OneMillionMoms are showing success in the effort to educate people to Penney's aggressive national campaign to promote "gay" marriage.

The company is going downhill fast. Since February, the company stock has lost more than half its value, and Standard & Poor's Ratings Services lowered its credit rating on J.C. Penney Co. further into "junk" status.

First-year CEO Ron Johnson's decisions have led to disastrous results for the company. Rather than build on the faith-based traditions of founder James Cash Penney, Johnson has abandoned family values and taken the company into a financial tailspin by embracing social activism.

Families are the backbone of Penney's existence. As long as it pushes homosexual marriage, families will go elsewhere.

TAKE ACTION

Make a personal phone call to J.C. Penney's customer service department. Urge them to return to family values and stop pushing the gay marriage agenda.

Their numbers are 972-431-8200 (customer service) and 972-431-1000 (corporate headquarters).

Because JCP blocks emails from our server, you can also write a personal email to J.C. Penney at this email address: jcpcorpcomm@jcpenney.com.

Then let's check out the WSJ:

Midprice department store operator J.C. Penney Co. (US:JCP) fell 2.2%, even though its drop also reflected a judge’s preliminary injunction against Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, which was planning a line of home and kitchen products for Penney despite Martha Stewart’s exclusive agreement with Penney’s rival Macy’s Inc. (US:M)

http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-07-16/industries/32692978_1_retail-sales-discounters-wal-mart-stores-and-ross-stores

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/citi-cuts-views-on-penney-kohls-macys-target-2012-07-17

Or we can look at Bloomberg:

http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/news/article.asp?docKey=600-201207060339KRTRIB__BUSNEWS_12580_45346-1&params=timestamp||07/06/2012%203:39%20AM%20ET||headline||Plano-based%20J.C.%20Penney%20begins%20massive%20store%20remodels%20%5BThe%20Dallas%20Morning%20News%5D||docSource||Knight%20Ridder/Tribune||provider||ACQUIREMEDIA||bridgesymbol||US;JCP&ticker=JCP:US

[Maggie Mae]

Or it could be that Penney's spent a lot of money on revamping their pricing and advertising, which failed miserably, coupled with the fact that they have a reputation of "old people shop at Penney's." And IMO, every Penney's I've been in is kind of like shopping at a thrift store. There is no real organization, there are too many racks of stuff to go through and most of the clothes are crap. Sometimes you can find something worth it, but for me, it's faster to shop anywhere else.

[FaeT]

I saw Ellen's show when she was talking about OMM boycott. She went on Facebook to show how they only actually had 40-some thousand. And in retaliation, someone started another group of moms supporting ellen and jc penny. They had more fans almost instantly. Even bill o'reilly supported ellen. (that - compared with robertson supporting the legalization of pot just made my head spin) The truth is, a majority of US citizens do support same sex marriage. They see DOMA for what it is - a discriminatory bill funded, written, supported by religious nut cases. Whether people support ellen/same sex marriage or not, it's not going to affect stocks that much. And if any stock fell by 50%, the entire economic system would collapse. It's a domino affect and it could very well bring around another crash, only this would be worse than the one in 1929. These people make me sick. They have no idea what the fuck they're talking about.

And here's something you'll never hear them say: If I'm wrong in my analysis of the situation, please correct me.

[She Who Laughs]

Standard and Poor's did downgrade them to junk status, second downgrade since just May. They also had a bigger-than-expected loss and a 20 percent drop in revenue in the first quarter. Whatever the reason behind it, they aren't doing so hot.

[slickcat79]

Well, if by some weird turn of events JCP did decide to drop Ellen and return to their "family values" business model, I wonder how many of those 40K moms would run right out and shop there in support? My guess would be few to none. It's really easy to send an email to a company bitching about something, but most fundies (and lots of people in general) can't or won't actually put their money where their mouths are. How many fundies that we snark on here could even afford to shop moderately-priced department stores? You can't exactly buy used and save the difference. It would be really easy for me to "boycott" JCP if I wanted to; I can only remember buying something there once in the last 5+ years. Let's see the 40K moms actually successfully boycott Apple or Google...then maybe I could take them seriously :roll: