Sears or JCP who will die first?

[Snowman]

I do think its possible for a chain to find a sweet spot between the two models in which they don't go too crazy with store openings to maximize the amount of profitable locations. In addition, unprofitable stores would be closed.

Part of the problem is once a company is public that encourages to CEO to keep a growth model if at all plausible, once they you lose an evaluation as a growth stock, it's price gets hammered. Which also negatively impacts it's ability to get new capital and erodes company moral, which was often declining for a long time before that.