Bad Math, Bad Move and Buh-Bye Men's Wearhouse

I have bought numerous suits, pants, sport coats, blazers, shirts, ties, shoes .. you name it from The Men’s Wearhouse – but that’s over now. In an effort to show solidarity with the Occupy Oakland protest, an Oakland store displayed the sign pictured to the right and joined the movement in its call for a national general strike.

Founder and Chairman George Zimmer has a history of supporting progressive candidates. That much I can deal with. To directly support a cause that calls for the fall of capitalism is despicable, hypocritical and outright wrong when you’ve benefited from it. How is it that a successful capitalist suddenly believes that one persons success comes at a cost to another?

It’s the zero sum lie. If I work my way up from my humble beginnings – somehow, someone else must be deprived of the same ability. It doesn’t work that way and either Zimmer knows it or he’s smoking something.

Displaying outright ignorance in the store window is even worse. The Occupy this and that movement is just a few hundred useful idiots being organized by every major anti-USA organization imaginable. They do NOT represent 99% of Americans. They don’t even represent 99% of democrats.

Perhaps Mr. Zimmer thought that he was really standing with 99% of consumers and felt that it was a ok if he lost maybe 1% of possible clothes buyers. Unfortunately for Mr. Zimmer, the 2-3% of America represented by the Occupy park benchers were never going to buy anything in his stores. For a brilliant business founder, George doesn’t seem to understand basic math.

Prior to today, I had been a Men’s Wearhouse customer. I imagine many middle-income earners like me shopped there. They offer quality clothes, well-trained staff at reasonable prices. Considering that George doesn’t believe that I should have the ability to get ahead like him, I can no longer continue buying merchandise in his stores.

The Men’s Wearhouse is not a franchiser. So if the store did this and HQ didn’t immediately offer an apology – there is implied support. I am not asking for a nationwide boycott against the chain of Men’s clothing stores. I just won’t ever shop there again.

The Men’s Wearhouse did respond on facebook. Their awful attempt at explaining the action takes the previously implied consent and pushed it to outright, full-blown support of the anti-capitalist movement. From their fan page:

We closed our store near Oakland City Hall today, for one day, to express the company’s concern for the issue of wealth disparity in our country. The issue affects our employees and customers across the political spectrum.

With that, I found another use for my chop saw: