Mark Cuban Swipes At Chamath Palihapitiya's 'Oracle-Like Data Provider' Plan To Fix Non-Farm Payrolls, SPAC King Hits Back: 'No Need To Get Chippy'
Billionaire investor Mark Cuban is pushing back against venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya’s proposal to overhaul the Bureau of Labor Statistics' non-farm payrolls (NFP) report, calling out its impracticality.
What Happened: On Sunday, in a post on X, Cuban replied to Palihapitiya’s plan for fundamentally altering the way the Bureau of Labor Statistics collects and reports non-farm payroll data.
“Non-Farm Payrolls are total garbage,” Palihapitiya said, noting the number of revisions that have taken place “in both directions” over the years, while making his case that the Bureau wasn’t so much “conspiratorial” as it was “inadequate” for a dynamic economy like the United States.
See Also: Fed Stays Put On Rates, But Jobs Report Signals It May Regret It: This Week In Markets
“There needs to be a new, oracle-like data provider for this critical information,” Palihapitiya said, while arguing that President Donald Trump was right to fire Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who he says, led a vital U.S. economic function in an “unpredictable, haphazard and sloppy way.”
Cuban fired back, asking, “Did you even read what you wrote?” while highlighting the impracticality of an “Oracle-like data provider.”
“Who is gonna pay for the implementations?” he asked, before making a pointed jab, saying, “get off your knees Chamath.”
Palihapitiya has since responded to Cuban’s concerns, explaining exactly how he would go about implementing something like this with a four-step plan.
He proposed requiring all payroll providers to upload standardized data, running a model to flag errors, and then publishing the information in real time, before asking Cuban to share what he would do differently.
Why It Matters: The July Jobs report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, released on Friday, disappointed economists and experts, with payroll growth of 73,000, which fell short of estimates at 110,000.
Besides this, there were two downward revisions for May and June, which now show growth of just 19,000 and 14,000, respectively, down from the initial estimates of 144,000 and 147,000.
This has since led to Trump dismissing McEntarfer, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, whom he has accused of manipulating employment data for political purposes.
Photo Courtesy: Kathy Hutchins on Shutterstock.com
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