U.S. Consumers, Retailers in a "Death Spiral"

Retail maven Howard Davidowitz paid another visit to Tech Ticker this week. And despite signs of improvement in consumer confidence and retail stocks rising, Davidowitz is steadfast in his belief the consumer is dead.

Rather than summarize, let me just highlight some of his best one-liners:

On retail:

• "The retail business is terrible... It's almost all negative."
• "We're going to close hundreds of thousands of stores."

On the consumer:

• "They’re still over leveraged, they're losing jobs, their credit has been cut back."

On America:

• "We are in the tank forever. As a country we are out of control, we're in a death spiral."

On the stock market:

• "We're in terrible shape. That's what the fundamentals tell me. I can't explain the stock market."