(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Every generation gets its own flavor of survivalist--people driven to prepare for the end of societal order, AKA the Apocalypse, Armageddon, an epidemic of uncontrolled terrorism or any old kind of cataclysm--and Reuters reported Saturday on the most recent incarnation: "preppers." Are preppers any different from previous forward-thinking folks who dug bomb shelters or laid up stores of long-lasting dried goods and arms, just in case?

They are following in the footsteps of hippies in the 1960s who set up communes to separate themselves from what they saw as a materialistic society, and the survivalists in the 1990s who were hoping to escape the dictates of what they perceived as an increasingly secular and oppressive government.

Preppers aren't wild-eyed fanatical stereotypes, either.

"Modern preppers are much different from the survivalists of the old days," [said attorney and blogger Michael T. Snider]. "You could be living next door to a prepper and never even know it. Many suburbanites are turning spare rooms into food pantries and are going for survival training on the weekends."

The prepper next door is serious. They're not looking to Mayan prophecy or a wizened fundamentalist like Harold Camping for cues as to when the end might come--they believe it could happen any time.

The idea behind becoming a prepper may seem more rational now than it once did. Worries about the nation's economic woes alone can make a Mad Max machine-gun run to trade pelts or dry goods for gas and potable water seem much closer to reality than it was when that movie premiered in 1979 (and things were pretty tough then).

Being ready for what preppers call "uncivilization" is mainstream enough that one major membership warehouse chain has products geared toward holing up for a short time in your cabin, cellar or re-purposed missile silo. For less than the cost of an iPad (which would be useless in a catastrophe anyway, unless your Angry Birds addiction is just that profound), Costco will send the Shelf Reliance Ultimate Survival Pack to your door. It supposedly contains supplies enough for two people to survive up to two weeks.

Order 26 and you'll be good for a year.

[Reuters]

When representatives from Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, waltz into the New York Hilton for this year’s two-day International Council of Shopping Centers conference, many of the city’s most intrepid retail brokers will be close behind them, perhaps even plying those officials with compliments, dinner invitations and business opportunities.

The Category Killer.

So it goes for the 50-year-old, Arkansas-based retail chain, which since 2005 has continued to seek big-box space in New York City’s five boroughs despite thrice being spurned by the City Council, civic groups and labor unions upset with the company’s decision to roll back health care coverage for part-time workers and raise premiums for full-time staff.

As retail brokers told The Commercial Observer last week, however, the chain continues to draw flirtatious advances from agents attempting to land what, no doubt, would be one of the city’s biggest leasing assignments in years. Because the company has no dedicated real estate broker, most continue to send their love, some even on a weekly or monthly basis.

“They’re constantly calling them,” said Patrick Breslin, an executive vice president of East Coast Retail Services for Studley, who said he has observed colleagues fawn over Walmart executives. “It’s a relationship business.”

As for a dinner audience, however, Walmart has a stricter policy than other large-scale retailers, such as K-Mart or Target, according to brokers who said the chain has turned down dinner invitations due to a long-standing restriction.

“When it comes to accepting stuff, Walmart is one of the leaders in banishing that from the business,” said Mr. Breslin. “I was at a lunch once with some Walmart guys and a real estate developer who represented Walmart,” added Mr. Breslin.

“I was just tagging along. I just happened to be in the city that day, and he said come out for lunch with me. He went to pay the bill, and the two Walmart guys were whipping out their cash and checkbooks to pay their portion of the bill.”

Still, the chain came close in 2005 to setting up shop in a Vornado Properties-owned, 132,000-square-foot space in Rego Park, Queens, but it was met with swift opposition by City Council members and other public officials who decried its tendency to gobble up small mom-and-pop stores in its path. Walmart and Vornado eventually backed away from the plans.

Since then, other big-box retailers with less political controversy have opened up throughout the outer boroughs: Costco, Century 21, Kohl’s, B.J.’s Wholesale Club, Target, even German retailer Aldi.

In the meantime, Related Companies has reportedly been speaking with Wal-Mart about moving into a 650,000-square-foot site in its Gateway II shopping center in East New York, Brooklyn. The City Council and many public officials remain opposed to any such development, including State Senator Diane Savino, who has criticized the Related Companies for its Wal-Mart overtures.

Three other Queens politicians, meanwhile, sent a letter to Related chief executive Stephen Ross urging him not to bring the retailer to Gateway II or any other Related-owned New York City location.

In the meantime, a long line of brokers and landlords made overtures at a booth tended by Walmart at the ICSC conference on Monday, but most were referred to a representative of the chain’s “Real Estate Directors East” team, Mary Rottler, who, one Walmart representative said, “would be at the conference [Tuesday.]”

drosen@observer.com

Speaking at a University of Michigan event this week, Munger said "I believe Costco does more for civilization than the Rockefeller Foundation," and the idea of "very intelligent people sitting around trying to do good" makes him squirm in his seat. Costco has been praised for its gentle treatment of employees.

Munger's view that big-box discount retailers are rich people's greatest gift to their fellow man stands in sharp contrast to that of Buffett, the folksy Nebraskan billionaire and Berkshire Hathaway CEO who plans to give 99 percent of his wealth away to charity.

It's to be expected that big-time executives view economic growth and entrepreneurship as the chief path to success. It's more rare, though not unheard-of, to hear such a view stated so plainly.

On a Tuesday morning Forest City Enterprises investors call, president and CEO (and cousin of Bruce) Chuck Ratner revealed that Costco Wholesale will open its first Manhattan store in East River Plaza, the development firm’s 500,000-square-foot mall set to open later this year on the plot of land bounded by 116th and 119th streets and the F.D.R. Drive. Costco already has outlets in Queens, Staten Island and Brooklyn.

The club store has assumed the 30-year (plus options) lease of Home Depot, according to Forest City spokesman Joe DePlasco. Home Depot, despite its longtime involvement in the plaza, ultimately decided to forgo its expansion. The lease assumption took longer than expected because Costco required a city variance to allow for nighttime deliveries.

Costco will occupy 110,000 square feet and employ 400 people, according to Mr. DePlasco, who added that East River Plaza is now 74 percent leased. Other tenants include Target, Best Buy and Marshalls.

drubinstein@observer.com

Sales were up 3 percent year-over-year at Wal-Mart, falling short of the 3.4 percent boost analysts predicted. The nation’s largest retailer prepared investors for a tough August as well, estimating a 1 to 2 percent increase.

• Target’s sales fell 1.2 percent annually.
• Kohl’s dropped 10.4 percent.
• J.C. Penney's were down 6.5 percent.
• Neiman Marcus' sales were down 1.7 percent.
• Saks were down 5.3 percent.
• Nordstrom’s same-store sales dropped 6.1 percent.
• Sales at Gap Inc.'s sales were down 11 percent.
• Abercrombie & Fitch and American Eagle Outfitters were both down 7 percent for the month.
• Limited Brands dropped 5 percent.
• Sales at Wet Seal dropped 8.2 percent.
• Sales at Dillard’s were up 2 percent.

There were a few bright spots in annual sales, though.

• Aeropostale managed a 13 percent increase.
• Sam’s Club sales rose 3.5 percent.
• Costco's were up 10 percent.

In a series of hard-hitting articles, the paper has examined everything from the tyranny of new money on old friendships to the netherworld of executive compensation, to the painful socioeconomic choices being made by people like Denise and Robert Glassman, from his dashed dreams of a Nobel Prize when he abandoned private medical practice for investment banking to the couple’s current heart-wrenching dilemma: whether to abandon the ’hood for a more income-appropriate community, or continue to tough it out in a four-bedroom home on the mean streets of Short Hills, N.J.

The question remains, as it always does for aspirational New Yorkers: Where do I fit in here? Where do I stand in the pecking order? Am I part of the alpha-overlord plutocracy? Or someone destined for outer-borough ignominy?

By answering these 10 simple questions, the answer will quickly become apparent.

1) You’re flying somewhere over the United States when the pilot announces that your destination airport is socked in. Your response is to:

A) Press the flight-attendant call button and see if you can buy another $4 snack box of beef jerky.

B) Fire up the laptop and continue to work on that PowerPoint for tomorrow’s sales conference in Cincinnati.

C) Ask the stewardess for another glass of Champagne, and hit on the movie star in the next seat.

D) Tell the pilot to switch course: You’re spending the night at the house in Telluride.

2) Brooklyn is:

A) My current residence.

B) My nightmare, after we have the second kid.

C) Trendy, right?

D) Someplace that I’m working with Frank Gehry to develop.

3) Which best describes your relationship with your nanny?

A) I am the nanny.

B) Nanny? What nanny? We use daycare.

C) We’re so worried about Conchita writing a tell-all book that we’ve asked her to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

D) We prefer to call her “the governess.”

4) A hip restaurant has just opened in your neighborhood. Your reaction is:

A) I’m still waiting for Drew Nieporent to introduce a line of frozen shrimp scampi at Costco.

B) I’m pissed off at the town cars clogging the block, but waiting for the Times review before we decide to splurge.

C) Sure, it was $1,200 for dinner, but worth every penny. Especially since I took the senior V.P. for ethics compliance and wrote the whole thing off.

D) I’m an investor. Need a table?

5) Which best describes your personal security measures?

A) Bars on the windows.

B) Concealed-carry permit.

C) Frantic phone call to 911.

D) Safe room, armored limo, heat-seeking missiles on the chopper.

6) Disgruntled with the current state of American politics, you decide to make a difference by:

A) Donating $25 to MoveOn.org.

B) Donating $200 to Hillary2008.Org.

C) Giving $2,000 to Barack Obama.

D) Taking your bonus money from Goldman Sachs and buying a governorship.

7) Disgruntled with the current state of The New York Times, you decide to register your unhappiness by:

A) No longer stealing your neighbor’s newspaper every morning.

B) Writing a really scathing letter to the editor.

C) Instructing your P.R. people to compose a withering op-ed piece.

D) Buying up 10 percent of the Class A common stock and launching an unfriendly takeover.

8) Which character do you most resemble in this morning’s op-ed column by Tom Friedman?

A) Mustafa, the Third World cabdriver who picked Tom up at the airport and gave him new insight into the global economy by describing the cell-phone service he’s starting.

B) JimBo, the recently laid-off Detroit autoworker who met Tom at a book-signing and confirmed the latter’s theories about the global economy by describing a new career as a Pilates instructor.

C) Hank Smith III, the C.E.O. who fired JimBo after reading Tom’s latest book and coming to the conclusion that it was the only way to compete in the global economy.

D) Alwaleed bin Adballah, the Saudi royal prince who confided his personal plan for peace in the Middle East as he flew Tom to Gstaad on his private 737– which took place after Mustafa dropped Tom off at the palace, and the prince agreed to invest in the cabdriver’s fledgling cell-phone company.

9) Opining about executive compensation on The Times Op-Ed page, Nick Kristof recently called Barry Diller “the laziest man in America”—to which the IAC/Interactive C.E.O. supposedly replied that the columnist’s ideas were “bird-brainy.” Your reaction to this is:

A) Who’s Nick Kristof?

B) Diller is a rapacious greedhead, and I’ve never been able to find a decent bargain on Travelocity anyway.

C) Diller is a risk-taking visionary who’s worth every penny of his compensation package.

D) I am Barry Diller.

10) And finally, your preferred holiday greeting is:

A) Merry Christmas.

B) Happy Hanukkah.

C) Welcome to St. Bart’s.

D) Welcome aboard! I’ll let Felipe show you to your stateroom.

Local pols fall over each other to assert that they will keep us free from the contagion of Sam Walton’s chain.

It emerged in February that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton had returned a $5,000 donation from the nation’s biggest retailer—despite the fact that she had served on the company’s board from 1986 to 1992.

Earlier this month, Councilman John Liu responded to news that the corporation had considered opening a store in his Queens district with the stark assertion that “Wal-Mart is not welcome in Flushing.”

Council Speaker Christine Quinn won a round of applause at a business breakfast last week by announcing, “I don’t want Wal-Mart in the City of New York unless they change their corporate behavior.”

Sympathy for Wal-Mart doesn’t come easy. The company makes about $20,000 every minute. Total compensation for the company’s C.E.O. was more than $17 million last year.

But those numbers are testament to nothing more sinister than the chain’s size and success. Look beyond them and it becomes obvious that the exclusion of the company from the five boroughs hurts New Yorkers.

Some liberal voices are finally being raised on Wal-Mart’s behalf. None is more persuasive than that of Jason Furman. Mr. Furman was the director of economic policy on Senator John Kerry’s Presidential campaign.

Now a visiting scholar at New York University, his recent paper, “Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story,” is essential reading.

Mr. Furman—who has never received a cent from Wal-Mart—systematically dismantles the most common accusations leveled against the company.

He demonstrates that the gains from Wal-Mart’s low prices far outweigh any damage caused by downward pressure on retail-sector wages. (Mr. Furman also notes that evidence of the latter phenomenon is “far from clear.”)

He cites an independent study led by an M.I.T. economist that found big-box stores like Wal-Mart make consumers better off “by the equivalent of 25 percent of annual food spending.”

Moreover, because low-income Americans spend proportionally more of their money on food, they benefit most of all.

“Lower prices are the equivalent of higher wages,” Mr. Furman told The Observer. “So, for the 150 million Americans who shop at Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart’s being there is the equivalent of giving them a pay raise.”

Mr. Furman’s paper also notes that 48 percent of Wal-Mart’s workers have health insurance, compared with only 46 percent in the retail industry as a whole. And it suggests that Wal-Mart’s wages are virtually indistinguishable from sector norms.

It isn’t necessary to pick through arcane economic data to see that the case against Wal-Mart may be exaggerated. If the company really is the scourge of workers, it seems germane to ask why its job openings are routinely oversubscribed. In January, an astonishing 25,000 people applied for 325 jobs at a new store in the Chicago suburbs.

In New York, politicians seem to turn a blind eye to the public will. Queens Councilwoman Melinda Katz last summer lectured Wal-Mart that it needed to amend its behavior. “Then,” she said, “you would be surprised about how welcoming a community can be.” But Ms. Katz’s constituents already do “welcome” Wal-Mart—by leaving her borough to spend their dollars at the chain’s nearest store in Valley Stream, Nassau County. According to a survey commissioned by the company, almost 70 percent of shoppers at the outlet are Queens residents.

Some voices in the anti-Wal-Mart chorus fret about the homogenization of New York as nationwide chains move in. The critics seem to believe that New York is so special that its people have no use for a Wal-Mart, but also so frail that its distinctiveness would be vaporized the moment the company’s logo hove into view.

But the city already is home to several big-box brands, including Target, Costco and Kohl’s. There is even a Kmart within spitting distance of the heart of the East Village. The sky has not yet fallen.

In truth, the anti-Wal-Mart campaign is primarily funded by labor unions that are fearful of losing influence. The unions make a disingenuous case, presenting a struggle to protect a relatively small number of workers as a noble battle for the common good.

The campaign to keep Wal-Mart out is antithetical to the common good. Many more New Yorkers would gain from Wal-Mart’s presence than would be hurt by it. None would benefit more than those residents of modest means who struggle to raise a family in one of the most expensive cities on earth.

Maybe the New York politicians who take pride in their implacable opposition to Wal-Mart are unaware of that reality. Or maybe they recognize it, but are too in thrall to the unions to act on it.

Shame on them either way.

Local pols fall over each other to assert that they will keep us free from the contagion of Sam Walton’s chain.

It emerged in February that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton had returned a $5,000 donation from the nation’s biggest retailer—despite the fact that she had served on the company’s board from 1986 to 1992.

Earlier this month, Councilman John Liu responded to news that the corporation had considered opening a store in his Queens district with the stark assertion that “Wal-Mart is not welcome in Flushing.”

Council Speaker Christine Quinn won a round of applause at a business breakfast last week by announcing, “I don’t want Wal-Mart in the City of New York unless they change their corporate behavior.”

Sympathy for Wal-Mart doesn’t come easy. The company makes about $20,000 every minute. Total compensation for the company’s C.E.O. was more than $17 million last year.

But those numbers are testament to nothing more sinister than the chain’s size and success. Look beyond them and it becomes obvious that the exclusion of the company from the five boroughs hurts New Yorkers.

Some liberal voices are finally being raised on Wal-Mart’s behalf. None is more persuasive than that of Jason Furman. Mr. Furman was the director of economic policy on Senator John Kerry’s Presidential campaign.

Now a visiting scholar at New York University, his recent paper, “Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story,” is essential reading.

Mr. Furman—who has never received a cent from Wal-Mart—systematically dismantles the most common accusations leveled against the company.

He demonstrates that the gains from Wal-Mart’s low prices far outweigh any damage caused by downward pressure on retail-sector wages. (Mr. Furman also notes that evidence of the latter phenomenon is “far from clear.”)

He cites an independent study led by an M.I.T. economist that found big-box stores like Wal-Mart make consumers better off “by the equivalent of 25 percent of annual food spending.”

Moreover, because low-income Americans spend proportionally more of their money on food, they benefit most of all.

“Lower prices are the equivalent of higher wages,” Mr. Furman told The Observer. “So, for the 150 million Americans who shop at Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart’s being there is the equivalent of giving them a pay raise.”

Mr. Furman’s paper also notes that 48 percent of Wal-Mart’s workers have health insurance, compared with only 46 percent in the retail industry as a whole. And it suggests that Wal-Mart’s wages are virtually indistinguishable from sector norms.

It isn’t necessary to pick through arcane economic data to see that the case against Wal-Mart may be exaggerated. If the company really is the scourge of workers, it seems germane to ask why its job openings are routinely oversubscribed. In January, an astonishing 25,000 people applied for 325 jobs at a new store in the Chicago suburbs.

In New York, politicians seem to turn a blind eye to the public will. Queens Councilwoman Melinda Katz last summer lectured Wal-Mart that it needed to amend its behavior. “Then,” she said, “you would be surprised about how welcoming a community can be.” But Ms. Katz’s constituents already do “welcome” Wal-Mart—by leaving her borough to spend their dollars at the chain’s nearest store in Valley Stream, Nassau County. According to a survey commissioned by the company, almost 70 percent of shoppers at the outlet are Queens residents.

Some voices in the anti-Wal-Mart chorus fret about the homogenization of New York as nationwide chains move in. The critics seem to believe that New York is so special that its people have no use for a Wal-Mart, but also so frail that its distinctiveness would be vaporized the moment the company’s logo hove into view.

But the city already is home to several big-box brands, including Target, Costco and Kohl’s. There is even a Kmart within spitting distance of the heart of the East Village. The sky has not yet fallen.

In truth, the anti-Wal-Mart campaign is primarily funded by labor unions that are fearful of losing influence. The unions make a disingenuous case, presenting a struggle to protect a relatively small number of workers as a noble battle for the common good.

The campaign to keep Wal-Mart out is antithetical to the common good. Many more New Yorkers would gain from Wal-Mart’s presence than would be hurt by it. None would benefit more than those residents of modest means who struggle to raise a family in one of the most expensive cities on earth.

Maybe the New York politicians who take pride in their implacable opposition to Wal-Mart are unaware of that reality. Or maybe they recognize it, but are too in thrall to the unions to act on it.

Shame on them either way.

What's the problem?

Incidentally, those subsidies would be an important part of the plan to get the building up.

- Tom McGeveran