Left unsaid?

The Deal to Trade Forestland for a Development Rights Falls Through, The Bulletin, Front Page, Nov. 26, 2008.

For the life of me, I couldn't find the "Why" in this story. It fell through because it fell through, or more specifically because of complications and problems.

Yeah, I get that.

My guess, however, is the "Development" side fell through because it was no longer commercially viable. Or at least not commercially viable enough to fight it's way through the opposition.

Meanwhile, in the national news there is this honey of a quote from Borders Books, who has been trying to sell:

"It's been quite a distraction on the organization. We are really glad to get to this point," Jones said. "We looked at all the alternatives. We feel ready to weather the economic storm that all retailers are in."

Yeah, right. Couldn't find any buyers, could you?

The rest of the article (Freep.com) just details how sick the chain is.

I'll go to the comic site, ICV2 though, to sum up the situation that bookstore chains are in:

In full:

Borders Sales Drop Worst of All
Same Stores Drop 12.8%
Published: 11/26/2008 12:00am

Borders released its financial information for the quarter ended November 1st after the close on Tuesday, and its sales drop was the worst of major book chains reporting this quarter. Sales at Borders superstores dropped 12.8% vs. the same store a year ago, or 10.6% with music excluded. For those of you keeping score at home, here are the same store sales declines of the three largest book chains for the most recent quarter:

Barnes & Noble -- 7.4% decline

Waldenbooks -- 7.7% decline

Books-a-Million -- 9.9% decline

Borders -- 12.8% decline


Hey, guys. Why don't you just build more stores?