Posted on 08/01/2022 7:43:43 AM PDT by ConservativeInPA
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. construction spending tumbled in June as outlays on single-family homebuilding declined sharply amid rising mortgage rates.
The Commerce Department said on Monday that construction spending dropped 1.1% in June after gaining 0.1% in May. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast construction spending would rise 0.1%.
Construction spending increased 8.3% on a year-on-year basis in June. Spending on private construction projects decreased 1.3% after increasing 0.2% in May.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Yep. Anyone who bothers to look at historical markers when analyzing the data for previous recessions can see that unemployment is the last domino to fall.
Just the fact we are missing 600K jobs from January 2020 might be another clue
Correct. Also, an accurate look at historical data should not be done simply by going back to the closest year for similar data. Lazy ass journalists often refer to “highest CPI in 40 years”. A better parallel is early 70’s. We’re at the beginning of this mess, not the end, just like the early 70’s.
In the early 70’s you could buy a nice four bedroom home for $18,000...
It is also foolish to thing that the stock market has bottomed out. In the previous recessions there were always bear trap rallies. This happened in the 70s, 80s and 2009.
Unemployment increases always happen in the tale end of the recession because companies get rid of the excess dead weight in their companies. When they do, they become more profitable.
IF every company would get rid of half of their HR departments , it would probably be a good start. All the diversity hires will end up on the unemployment line.
I explained this to my 24 year old son a couple weeks ago when he was complaining about how many hours he was putting in at his big pharma corporate job. I told him it was job security for the up coming recession.
Recessions are necessary, have always happened and always will unless we go to a central planned economy with no growth.
Expansions are followed by recessions which are followed by expansions. Ride the waves and take advantage.
“In the early 70’s you could buy a nice four bedroom home for $18,000...”
In the early 70’s the minimum wage was 85 cents an hour.
Those were the days!
I believe the general minimum wage was $1.60 in 1968.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart
This recession wasn’t caused by a business cycle.
“Those were the days!”
In the early 1970s, the fictional Bunkers of “All in the Family” sang those words.
“unemployment”
In my area, just about all new construction except for land clearance is done by Hispanic workers.
The “white” folks who once did new residential construction work either do repair work or are homeless.
I suspect the majority of the homeless in my area used to build houses.
There’s always a business cycle. It is the result of human psychology.
Investment people, like dogs, chase things that move.
When prices of assets rise, people buy, until those asset prices become excessively high. Then those prices fall, and keep falling, until enough people take a chance at getting a possibly good deal.
Trump sped up the boom in order to improve his reelection chances. Biden was forced to continue to feed the asset inflationary fire so he would not be blamed for a recession. The Democrats have just thrown $300 billion into the economy to try to avoid an official declaration of recession.
However, most assets will still be overpriced despite the $300 billion in inflationary fuel.
The minimum wage in 1975 was What was $2.10. Taxes were low and we didn’t have to buy home security systems because our cities weren’t hellholes.
In the early 80's I was making $2.35 on the farm. Had no money and time to burn. Life sure changes.
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