While the economy finally seems to have recovered from the Great Recession, complete with discussion of full employment and rising wages, the memo must have missed the retail industry, where top executives of Macy's, J.C. Penney, Office Depot and the like pepper quarterly analyst briefings with terms like "softening trends," "disappointing" and "not satisfied." Since January, at least a dozen shrinking retailers have announced nearly 3,000 store closings. Even well-regarded companies such as Nordstrom see their shares trading at barely half their 2015 highs.