• Bloomberg, Friday, February 5, 2010 9:48 AM

Bloomberg Multimedia lead analyst Richard Yamarone and lead designer David Yanofsky have put together a cogent, highly readable and compellingly interactive charticle that unfortunately carries a the chilling conclusion: Based on historical data, it's not likely that the economy will recover sufficiently this year to avoid the demise of a raft of retail outlets.

If you assume "average" assumptions for the GDP (+1%), unemployment (+0.4), real spending (+1%) and net worth (+1%), the data suggest that the U.S. will have a 9.68% "excess" retail capacity by the end of 2010. But you can easily adjust any one, or all, of the variables to create different scenarios. If you're more optimistic about the employment prospects, for example, sliding an arrow up to +2% yields a 6.78% overcapacity prediction.

Alas, even with the most bullish figures the chart is willing to muster under its own authority, it appears that we've got 5.72% more retail outlets than we'll need. What impact this debacle might have on marketers, consumers and media, however, is left for more traditional articles to divine.

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