Closed and Closing

I am not a businessman and if I were, I'd have a difficult time dealing with recession economics.  But I have been watching two businesses at Park City which are going out of business and I just don't understand their procedures.  The first is the calendar business in the mall.  In November they opened two locations selling 2009 calendars at about $13 each.  They had thousands to sell and must have done a good business.  In January they began to drop their prices, first to $6 then to $4.  About two weeks ago they combined calendars and kept just one location open.  Since then they appeared to sell very few - a month of the new year is already gone.  Yesterday they were still asking $4 and probably had at least a thousand left.  Today they are closed - gone.  Now what do you do with a thousand 2009 calendars?   Why not sell them out at let's say $1 - you'd bring in a couple of hundred dollars rather than lose it all when you toss them.  Maybe they plan to donate them to the homeless, or something.  Then there is the toy store that has been going out of business for a month.  They reduced most things to 60% - 80% off and had some great bargains.  I bought quite a few things for our Awana store from them during this past month.  But they have about 80 electronic Rubric's Cubes and I thought our Awana kids might be interested in them.  They have been asking $8 for them since the sale began.  Since they weren't selling I made an offer to buy 20 of them for Awana for $4 each.  The sales person just laughed at me and said everybody would want them at that price. Really?   So today, with two more days left in their closing sale, the approximately 80 cubes are still there at $8 each.  And as far as I am concerned, they can stay there.  I don't know what they will do with them - maybe they make more on a "write-off" than making an $80 sale.  But then, like I said, I'm not a businessman, just a dumb consumer.  I guess that is the way it is with recession economics.