Best Buy: Doomed. Unknowledgeable salespeople, painfully inefficient checkout. Less people buying anything there than there are kids buying Shuffles in the Apple Store.

Bed Bath and Beyond: A pleasure to enter. Keeps getting better, drug store items cheaper than Duane Reade. So-so sales people but you don’t need too much expertise to buy most things there.

Duane Reade: Hard to say. Now owned by Walgrens. Lousy service, but on the other hand they keep stocking more stuff. Half the store is now milk, cereal, rice etc open 24 hours. Eventually they will be selling their own brand of men’s suits. Banana Republic, watch out.

Food Emporium: More expensive than Whole Foods, but much worse quality and service. Why would anyone who didn’t absolutely have to go there?

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And, not really related to the above, but anyway:

Behavioral Finance: It started out a la Kahneman and Tversky with great aspirations, but, from the FEN newsletters I receive, seems to be focusing increasingly on things like gender differences in investing and how growing up in the great depression makes you more risk averse. Interesting, but not a discipline. Better off in a sociology department. And nooral finance isn’t going to be its savior, though it may provide fodder for papers and grants.