I’m getting worried about Nike.

A little holiday shopping led to this observation: There’s too much Nike (NKE) at Nordstrom’s (JWN) (hey I don’t spend all my time at Walmart).

In my last post I left off as I sped on my way to Walmart with a short, but important shopping list. Well, sped isn’t the right word. I kind of puttered around a bit and eventually got around to it. The problem was the list. There wasn’t a sexy thing on it. Nothing to rev my engine. Just a few of life’s little essentials. Yawn.

Does a recession have to be boring? I’m craving a little pizzazz - I’m hunting for a sexy brand story to be my beacon of hope as these financial waves keep crashing.
So who has a little sex appeal and makes a strong brand promise? Who gives you what you expect every time? Who never fails to captivate, always commanding our attention? You could call him Mr. Aurum, but ask OldGoldBug and he’ll tell you… it’s gold! Shiny, shiny gold.

Diapers are recession-proof. Even cat diapers.

Yes I’m a cat person. It may not be macho, but there it is. I could blame the girlfriend, but it would be a fib. I’m a bona fide cat person, and these days, I’m afraid to say, I am cat-with-diapers person. It’s a drag. Trixie is quite old and that darn litter box never seems to be where she needs it to be. The solution (and it works): cat diapers! It’s not dignified (and if she knew they were actually doggie diapers she’d be mortified), but putting feline vanity aside, the fact is the diapers work, they do exactly what I expect them to do, and that is the point.

Before I get started I need some music. I'm thinking the Rolling Stones.  Nothing like a little music when I'm writing, especially when my back is hurting and I'm still feeling toasty from the warm reception to my debut on Seeking Alpha.  But don't let me be a poor host, while I get settled you can watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7QsQ4VVCNI

Okay good, I've got my lumbar cushion in place, my laptop is humming and Mick is singing "You can't always get what you wa-ant". Good stuff.  And I assume that you couldn't miss Jim Cramer's frustration with not getting what he wants in the segment. I mean that is not what you would call self-satisfaction dripping from phrases like "...it is cavalier at this point to ignore me, but not only am I ignored, I am dismissed as a gadfly. It's pathetic."  Say what you will, but on Wednesday James J. wasn't happy with his brand.

Jim Cramer, the Mad Money man, Mr. Silver Lining, has a branding problem. He’s the boy who cried “wolf”. Not the boy at the beginning of the story, but the boy at the end, the one that everybody should be listening to, but they ain’t.

I’ve been spending the past few days flat on a heating pad nursing a bad back and watching the news. And boy is it a newsy world right now, but I’m not going to go into that.  Well, just enough to say that the big stories, the wet stories, the dry stories, the red and blue stories, aren’t THE story.  As I said I was flat on my back watching the news, enjoying the cozy warmth of an old cat who was enjoying the cozy, ambient warmth from the heating pad, when I heard the “ding”, the lovely interrupting chime that tells me that Mr. Bailey is on the chat.