What Recovery? U.S. Consumers Getting "Dramatically Worse," Howard Davidowitz Says

[marmar]

from Yahoo!:



What Recovery? U.S. Consumers Getting "Dramatically Worse," Howard Davidowitz Says
Posted Dec 01, 2009 07:30am EST by Aaron Task

According to the National Retail Federation, retail sales over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend were $41.2 billion, up slightly from a year ago, while about 195 million consumers shopped, up from 172 million last year.

Meanwhile, Coremetrics says the average online shopper spent 35% more on Black Friday vs. a year ago, while robust sales were predicted for Cyber Monday.

Against that backdrop, you might expect Howard Davidowitz of Davidowitz & Associates to backtrack from some of the bearishness he's professed on Tech Ticker (and elsewhere) in the past year. But you'd be wrong.

"The consumer is in worse shape since I was here last" in August, Davidowitz says, citing the following:

* Unemployment has exploded: "We've lost a ton of jobs since I was here last," Davidowitz says, noting the "real" unemployment rate is 17.5%. "That's an astounding number."

* Housing continues to sink: "The consumers' biggest asset is down trillions" in value while "foreclosures are exploding" and a huge percentage have negative equity -- 23% according to CoreLogic.

* Record numbers of consumer bankruptcies: The American consumer has "never been further behind...never defaulted more" on mortgages, student loans, auto loans, and credit card bills, he says.

* Poverty on the Rise: One in eight Americans and one in four children are receiving food stamps, as The NYT reported this weekend.

"A lot of people were out on Black Friday -- you're always going to spend some money because it's Christmas," he says. "(But) the consumer continues to get dramatically worse."

Davidowitz predicts "the noise will be taken out" about "strong" Black Friday sales in the coming weeks and a sobering reality will settle in: "People will look a stores closing and a rash of bankruptcies after Christmas. People will start to look at this and say ‘wow, this is terrible,'" he says.

Watch the piece: http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/381625/What-Recovery-U.S.-Consumers-Getting-%22Dramatically-Worse%22-Howard-Davidowitz-Says?tickers=RTH,XLP,XLY,WMT,TGT,HD,^DJI

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. It's a "trickle-down" recovery with the bankers and politicians doing the trickling.

[leftstreet]

2. Be patient! Jobless recoveries are tricky!

They're beta-testing it, you see.

[Xenotime]

3. Patience doesn't put food on the table..

Obama needs to do something sooner rather than later. And I'm not talking about giving the rich more money.

[DrDan]

8. expect a bump in defense spending in . . . .oh . . . say . . .a couple of hours

[4_TN_TITANS]

11. As for defense spending..

There was an excellent post yesterday about 'what if' we brought home all of those Guard & Reserve soldiers in Iraq & Afganistan - what would that do for unemployment? Keeping soldiers employed is the only rationale I see for the defense spending, albeit I wish they were working on infrastructure over here.

[XemaSab]

14. Interesting point

:(

[DrDan]

15. well . . . perhaps we should think about employment for teachers that have

been displaced - one new teacher for each troop brought home and removed from military roles.

I certainly hope we are not continuing this war just to prevent a rise in unemployment.

[OhioChick]

12. You got it. n/t

[truedelphi]

6. Jobless recoveries are especially tricky -e specially when combined

With homeless recoveries!

[marmar]

4. How is this post controversial? I just don't get the unrec'ing sometimes.

nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. Maybe people think it's deliberately misleading.

Unemployment, for example, has leveled off exactly like one would expect in a recovery rather than "exploded." Regardless of what metric is used.

And housing is improving dramatically. So is manufacturing. And the article is bending over backwards to dismiss the improvements in consumer confidence.

Frankly, it reads like typical sky-is-falling bullshit that you hear from cranks regardless of how well the economy is doing.

[Mudoria]

16. +1

[xchrom]

7. recommend

[Mari333]

9. sorry, we have wars to pay for

fuck the people.

[Romulox]

10. The important thing is that we distributed the taxpayer's money to Wall Street so rapidly

Jobs? Everybody knows that when the government doles out trillions to private interests that the jobs will follow later, if at all...

[XemaSab]

13. It's the dead cat bounce

After walking away from the mortgage and losing the car, mommy and daddy want to get something extra-special for junior this year. :(