A Family Loss

The demise of Circuit City brings great regret to the Richmond community and to this newspaper. The company was for years a source of local pride and economic stimulus. We are all deeply saddened by the losses suffered by Circuit City's employees and shareholders. It is time for us all to rally around them -- to help in any ways that we can.

The liquidation of a Fortune 500 company will weaken the local economy, though Richmond's fortunes remain more sanguine than those of most regions around the country. It also offers reminders about the impermanence of treasure accumulated here on Earth. It teaches more practical lessons as well.

The deep recession and the steep national decline in consumer spending ultimately killed Circuit City. But the company's management made numerous errors over the years that left the business dangerously vulnerable once the tough times hit. A culture of innovation helped the company launch some exceptionally successful ventures -- notably CarMax, a Circuit City spin-off that's now a Fortune 500 company. But the retailer's leadership also managed to lose sight of its -- of any business' -- core mission: delivering value to its customers and shareholders, and providing employees with the tools and incentives to create that value. The decision a few years back to fire the best sales people seems in retrospect a clear signal of a corporation that had lost its way. We took no delight in reporting the travails of a corporate colleague; the news had to be told. Moreover, difficult stories in any retailer's hometown newspaper will have scant impact on consumer behavior nationally.

Once the nation's leading electronics retailer, Circuit City was simply out-competed by Best Buy, at one time a much smaller company. There's no substitute for giving customers what they want, when they want it, where they want it. Free markets, as we've all learned in recent months, create great prosperity but also are terribly unforgiving for businesses that fail to anticipate the changing needs of customers whose dollars they seek. Competition promotes the greater good by rewarding those who really do provide the best buys -- the most benefit for the lowest price.

One of capitalism's greatest strengths -- the ascension of those who best serve the needs and desires of free people making their own economic decisions, at the expense of those who do not -- also gives rise to one of its most painful attributes. Failure is punished. It is an uncomfortable paradox that many who suffer did not fail in their personal enterprise.

Circuit City did not rise to such heights without the outstanding efforts of thousands of talented and hard-working men and women. And now these excellent people find themselves out of work through no fault of their own. It is indeed a hard, cruel world at times.

Many across the region and the country are suffering economic difficulties now because of actions not their own. We have government safety nets designed to ease the pain. But Americans are inherently self-sufficient. We want to earn our own way. And that is, for the moment, considerably more difficult than it was even a few months ago. This is an economy of results. Achieve and you go forward.

Free markets have never promised a free lunch. They do offer the opportunity to work and innovate and take risks -- to rise from adversity. And they will do so again, if we give them the chance. In these hard times, we are offered another kind of opportunity -- the chance to assist and comfort our friends and neighbors who have absorbed a temporary setback. Our job now is to help them get back to work.