greg portel joins us, lead partner for a.t. carney's consumer products and retail practice. greg, thanks for joining us tonight. >> thank you. >> you say that the consumer right now is the strongest part of the economy, and yet we've had so many store closures this year. bankruptcies by many retailers. and this week was an especially difficult week for department stores. why the dichotomy, what's going on here? >> the problem isn't so much with the consumer. the consumer tends to get blamed for the inability of many retailers to meet that consumer need. the data would suggest that consumer spending is there. the failure comes on the part of most retailers to meet that demand profile. >> so consumers are spending, it's just where they're spending, and it's not with department stores right now, right? >> absolutely. >> so what do they have to do? what's wrong with the business model of a department store these days? >> well, we've done some interesting research on the consumer at 250, which is really looking at the consumer behavior ten years out. what that will show you is a c