Amazon to take over JCPenneys and Sears?

"Amazon may take over old JCPenneys and Sears to try and speed up deliveries"

This is a smart and marvelous way for Amazon to save two of the most iconic and still-respected brands in U.S. retailing. It makes good business sense for them, and good sentimental sense for their loyal customers.

But I'm not exactly an objective, detached observer.

My first big job at 17 after High School was as a brake and wheel mechanic at Sears in Westwood Village, West L.A. I graduated to working indoors as a salesman, then went to Santa Monica College, then UCLA. Married in my senior year. A few years later, I moved to Sacramento for cheaper housing. I eventually got work as a management trainee ($5400 a year) at James Cash Penney's 214th store - which was five stories tall at 630 K-Street downtown.

I still have a golden rule tie clip with a tiny diamond, a reward for staying more than five years, because the golden rule was the way J.C. ran his company (and only with cash - no credit cards until after he died in 1971).

I eventually ran the main floor and almost reached $10,000 a year before moving to New York City to work with William F. Buckley Jr. at National Review. In retrospect, it was a better career move than sticking with J.C. Penney.

Yet I still have great admiration and affection for both Sears Roebuck (best for hard goods) and JCPenneys (better for soft). Keeping those brands alive is just good business sense.

Keeping more Sears and Penneys stores open can also be smart business with an Amazon connection = as a handy place to order, pick up and deliver package and also to look at things before buying (as we still like to do at Best Buy, Home Depot, Pottery Barn, Bed Bath and Beyond, jewelry stores, boutique clothiers, etc.).

If any antitrust zealot thinks this clever rescue operation would make Amazon a "monopoly" (of what?) I'd love to testify on the other side of that irrational claim in any court at any time. For free.