For years it seems I have read and heard about the ‘fabulous’ inventory control system that the behemoth of Bentonville has installed in its gazillions of stores that allows it to do real ‘just-in-time’ deliveries to effectively eliminate warehousing of goods.

You buy something and that item is deducted from the store’s inventory and it is automatically entered for replacement with the next truck. Nothing sits around gathering dust, and non-moving items are eliminated.

Then Nature started acting up and a major weakness of the system became apparent – there was no back-up if bridges went down, or stores were flooded. There was no warehouse of goods to replace what was lost.

Recently Bloomberg had an article on empty shelves at the stores, and the resulting flight of customers to other retailers. Of course, MalWart officials denied there was a problem [disgruntled employees, a few isolated cases].

Today I got roped into another trip to the lair of the beast, and apparently, the local store is one of those ‘isolated cases.’

My Mother worked in grocery stores for most of 45 years. I have worked in them to help out and pick up some spare cash. Keeping shelves stocked is the ‘prime directive’. If the customers can’t find it, you can’t sell it. Even if there is still product on the shelf, if you are stocking you ‘front the shelf’, i.e. you move the product forward so shoppers can see it.

There were gaping holes on those shelves, there were empty slots in the dairy cases, in the meat cases, in every section of the store except produce and the ‘deli’ area. This is bad management. A competent manager would never let this happen.

About that ‘lowest price’, that’s crap. I know about cat food, and MalWart does not have the lowest price on name brand cat food, and their price on their store brand isn’t that great. You have to check the weight and price the dry by the pound and the wet by the ounces. A number of their seeming ‘deals’ are due to reduced quantity.

So, President Obama will write a check to the Treasury for 5% of his salary, while Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and his deputy, Ashton Carter are writing checks equivalent to the 14-days of furlough that their subordinates are facing under the ‘sequester’.

So far, Congress hasn’t shown any interest in giving up anything. I would note that a 14-day furlough represents more than 10% of the work days that the House has scheduled for this year, which is around 130. Other than sitting on a board of directors for a major corporation it is hard to find a part-time job that pays better than Congress.