You're not wrong about its protracted demise, but people still paid money to get on the Sears boat based on good faith that the previous captains may have sucke

You're not wrong about its protracted demise, but people still paid money to get on the Sears boat based on good faith that the previous captains may have sucked, but the current one wasn't hellbent on ramming it into an iceberg, collecting the insurance money and leaving the passengers and crew to drown in his wake. The little people whose pensions and funds are either wholly or partially dependent on Sears are hurt by such malfeasance. That's not what the CEO of a company is supposed to do. It's unethical (for what little that means anymore). You might as well question how an IVF doctor implanting his own sperm in unsuspecting patients is harmful-- they wanted to get pregnant, right? I haven't read it, but I doubt that plan was enumerated in the Sears prospectus when Lampert took the helm. Letting such behavior go unchecked undermines faith in the economy-- the growth of which is fueled by peoples' ignorance of everything being out to fleece them.