🤣🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/G4rm6fl3jc
— Darth Powell (@VladTheInflator) August 21, 2024
So the BLS prelim benchmark revision is -818k (in line with our 800k forecast). But the 1Q QCEW county data implies a bigger revision of -958k.
To put this in context, the typical revision is 0.1% of payrolls…the past year was 0.5%, 5x as large.
— Anna Wong (@AnnaEconomist) August 21, 2024
#recession … #GFC2 US #Housing Bubble 2.0 edition https://t.co/4CHtUCylrt pic.twitter.com/ZfSyGXyAys
— Invariant Perspective (@InvariantPersp1) August 21, 2024
What do you think is about to happen to construction employment? pic.twitter.com/jPu4ELLfUG
— Peter Berezin (@PeterBerezinBCA) August 21, 2024
When shit like this happens, how is it possible that government agencies (like the BLS) don’t understand that they’re undermining their own credibility?
Then they complain about cynicism and conspiracy theories. 🤦🏻♂️ pic.twitter.com/xoeeIZjOhl
— Kalani o Māui (@MauiBoyMacro) August 22, 2024
Americans are doing less DIY. It’s another worrying sign for the economy.
A week after Home Depot described American consumers as having a “deferral mindset” about spending, Lowe’s is humming the same tune, saying American homeowners — and by extension the economy — are in a strange spot this summer.
Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison said on Tuesday that the home-improvement retailer’s DIY customers were “on the sidelines waiting for some form of an inflection to take place.”
Ellison was speaking on the company’s quarterly earnings call, during which Lowe’s lowered its earnings expectations for the rest of the year because of a slowdown in sales for big-ticket discretionary projects.
Large projects represent about three-quarters of DIY sales for Lowe’s, Ellison said, “so any pullback in these big-ticket discretionary categories is really more of a disproportionate impact to us.”
h/t Stephen Green