This is a shit article. It's like Derek Thompson read this article:

And made up some shit about restaurants.

Here's a great quote:

What’s up? Travel is booming. Hotel occupancy is booming

Here's the quote from the linked article:

2015 was the best year on record for hotels.

Here's another great quote:

Domestic airlines have flown more passengers each year since 2010, and last year U.S. airlines set a record, with 823 million passengers.

But if you look at actual statistics you'll discover that actual miles flown is super-consistent so what's happening is the airlines are getting better at packing people into seats. Air travel isn't expanding, it's getting more boxcar-like. Nowhere in here is revenue being discussed. That data isn't easy to come by - I looked.

Hey, how 'bout another stupid quote?

Since 2005, sales at “food services and drinking places” have grown twice as fast as all other retail spending.

You just finished saying retail spending was cratering. But okay, what rate is that? Oh, never mind, you don't have data, you just linked to a FRED graph thinking nobody would notice. But okay.

n 2016, for the first time ever, Americans spent more money in restaurants and bars than at grocery stores.

I wonder if there's a reason:

The price of a meal prepared by a restaurant jumped 3 percent in May compared with one year prior, according to Bloomberg Business’ analysis of the latest Consumer Price Index published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The price of a home-cooked meal, on the other hand, increased by a more modest 0.6 percent over the same period. The cost of eating at home has not compared so favorably with the price of eating out since 2010.

It's almost as if ALL retail is cratering But do go on, make up some shit about pesky whipper-snappers.

Many young people are driven by the experiences that will make the best social media content—whether it’s a conventional beach pic or a well-lit plate of glistening avocado toast. Laugh if you want, but these sorts of questions—“what experience will reliably deliver the most popular Instagram post?”—really drive the behavior of people ages 13 and up.

[citation needed] Hey, could you pull some more random shit out of your ass?

Once autonomous vehicles are cheap, safe, and plentiful, retail and logistics companies could buy up millions, seeing that cars can be stores and streets are the ultimate real estate. In fact, self-driving cars could make shopping space nearly obsolete in some areas. CVS could have hundreds of self-driving minivans stocked with merchandise roving the suburbs all day and night, ready to be summoned to somebody’s home by smartphone. A new luxury-watch brand in 2025 might not spring for an Upper East Side storefront, but maybe its autonomous showroom vehicle could circle the neighborhood, waiting to be summoned to the doorstep of a tony apartment building.

Go back to Echo Park, you piece of shit.

HERE ARE THE REAL ANSWERS

1) Money is going to mortgages, student loans, and medical care.

2) Bankruptcy laws used to protect retailers for 18 months, now they protect them for 7. Restructuring and returning to profitability in two seasons is very different than six. With 80% of retail sales occurring at Christmas, a bankrupt retailer can no longer survive until the next Christmas to recuperate.

3) Massively expensive leases that were lowered for the recession and never recovered.

4) Excess retail capacity due to easy commercial credit.

But then, you don't get to blame it on those fickle hipsters. Hey, Derek - could you hate on some people who are literally minors?

Department stores have failed as anchors, but better food, entertainment, and even fitness options might bring teens and families back to struggling malls, where they might wander into brick-and-mortar stores that are currently at risk of closing.

Sorry, Derek, the BLS hasn't done a study since 2013 but when they did, they said that teens don't fucking matter.

Yeah. Under 25s count about as much for retail as over 75s (AKA dead people, from a retail perspective). But thanks for making shit up!

What an excellent analogy this was: Between 2010 and last year, Amazon’s sales in North America quintupled from $16 billion to $80 billion. Sears’ revenue last year was about $22 billion, so you could say Amazon has grown by three Sears in six years.

Also posted today, very much related:

TLDR; Regardless of how it's broken down, the overall amount of debt is up. We've added a few more million people since 2008, so debt per capita still isn't what it was leading up to when the market took a tumble.

veen's article touched on it, but it seems like the secret's out. Experiences are more fulfilling than that $30,000 hammock 'bl00 posted here ~two years ago. So can we blame the baby boomers for falsely inflating the retail market through their rampant consumerism? Sure, why not.

None of this takes into account the long term effects of flooding the job market with increasingly devalued college diplomas. The earning power of college graduates should decrease accordingly.