Will it be a bath tub?

Interesting interview on Squawk this morn with Bill Zollars, the CEO of YRC Worldwide (that's Yellow Trucking for those of you who are not Squawk fans).

YRC is in a spot. Business is down double digits year over year. It's "significant. . . . It's very hard to find a metric that's headed in the right direction." He was on a year ago and presciently predicted this was coming. Sure enough he was right. He agrees that it may not end up being a V- or U-, but rather a bathtub-shaped bottom. Yikes.

Due to pension commitments Yellow has been forced to shift money from salaries over to pension benefits. They have more recently negotiated with the Teamsters union to reduce benefits to such an extent that the union pay and benefits package will soon be no better than the package for non-union members.

Unfortunately for so many, there may be a whole lot more of this in the coming months as American benefits adjust downward in order to be competitive in this World Economy.

The Wonder of Walmart

I got this graph from the IBD website.

What amazes me is Wal-Mart. From the accompanying article: "Wal-Mart's same-store sales rose 2.4%, beating forecasts. But comps excluding the world's No. 1 retailer fell 3.5%." Look at the top graph. Same-store sales for all stores was -.5% but take out Wal-Mart and it was -3.5%.

I've writ before about my amazement with grocery and big box stores. It's amazing the market share, the power of Wal-Mart. It does what Sears & Roebuck did in the early 20th century--provide affordable goods to the folks. That is a true service, desperately needed.

How many people have noticed that since Wal-Mart began providing four dollar generic prescriptions, Target, CVS, and Walgreens have all followed? How many people has that helped? And without any kind of government mandate.

My worry is that Barry, Nancy P, and wild man Harry Reid will legislatively force Wal-Mart to unionize. Wal-Mart is, after all, the prize for Big Labor.

It would be a shame to GM/Ford/Chrysler-ize something that this country so badly needs.