Sears got it wrong when Alan Lacy sold off the very profitable Sears credit dept and outsourced it to a 3rd party. That allowed Eddie Lampert to buy the company and that started the dominoes to fall. Alan Lacy also over paid for Land's End and then when EL spun it off we only got approx. half of what we paid. So, Mr. Lacy started this whole thing, that's where I put the blame. Montgomery Wards made the same mistake and they ceased operations circa 2001 ...was it? Eddie at first was in it for real estate but then when retail started trending down, I think he tried to save the company but it was too late. We lost our profit engine (Credit) and didn't have enough capital to turn things around.
OP posted this on another thread as a reply @VDjKXB3-dyr
I tend to agree that these events that he mentions started the domino effect. Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore, but as long as we are looking for reasons how we got to this state, think that these are some important parts of the puzzle.