Selena Gomez Saves Kmart! (...or so they hope)

There's something to be said for the power of positive thinking, but there's a huge difference between that and sheer delusional thinking. Kmart (NASDAQ: SHLD), meanwhile, seems to be exhibiting a HUGE dose of that with their agreement to bring in teen favorite Selena Gomez and her "Dream Out Loud" clothing line.

Clearly, Kmart (which has had a lousy decade by most any objective standard) is desperate to get its market share back which has been fleeing in droves for Walmart and Target almost as fast as they can go. And clearly, Walmart's been having a pretty good run of things by bringing in Miley Cyrus and her line of Max Azria gear. So it's not too outlandish to see Kmart "me too!" with the whole thing and bring in Miley Lite, Selena Gomez, because they couldn't actually afford Miley.

Leaving aside the sheer crassness of such a move (hey look kids--we've got a celebrity too...kinda...), Kmart's got SERIOUS systemic problems it needs to fix before a secondary move like this can really help. Kmart's been shuttering real estate all over the country--where will kids GO to get this Gomez gear in the first place? And the stores that are left are often in poor condition; at least that's how it is in my neck of the woods. The handful of Kmarts left open (that I've seen) are foul-smelling disaster areas that look more in need of complete destruction than a new line of clothes.

How much this will help Kmart remains to be seen...but I remain skeptical over whether Selena Gomez can bring Kmart back from the (mostly) dead.