CNBC:

JC Penney CEO Ron Johnson is out and Mike Ullman will rejoin the company as CEO, receiving an annual base salary of $1 million.

I was excited about everything that Ron Johnson did while he was at JC Penney and I was expecting the company to be in a much better position five years down the road. It would have been rough until then, but just walking through one of their partially renovated store was enough to convince me that they were heading in the right direction.

I don’t doubt that he was forced to step down and I think it was the most boneheaded decision the company could have made. Turning around an ailing company isn’t easy and Johnson had what it took to get the job done.