How's this for an endorsement: At the annual shareholder meeting, Warren Buffett urged people to buy Trillion Dollar Triage, my book about the economic-policy response to the Covid shock. "It's a marvelous account of what took place." Order your copy: https://t.co/oUIDNrDtKE

TREASURY SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: This will be the lowest cost for a Thanksgiving dinner in four years. Turkey prices are down 16%. KRISTEN WELKER: And yet some prices are going up of course. We have seen prices increasing on staples like coffee, bananas, bacon. Inflation has

Quite an exchange here. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says "inflation hasn't gone up," and then to cast Kristen Welker's line of questioning about specific food costs as irrelevant cherry-picking, he asks her, "How much does your arm weigh?"

Bessent: Inflation is up because of services, not goods. "If you look at the data, that imported goods, the inflation has actually been flat. Inflation is up because of the service economy and services. So that has nothing to do with tariffs." https://t.co/Vo7fxJvPXQ

Some further reading for those used to a Fed where the chair always gets his or her way: In 1978, just three months after he became Jimmy Carter's Fed chair, G. William Miller was in the minority, as his colleagues voted to raise rates. https://t.co/5ujnJb0oph That led to

Trump’s plan: Replace Powell, get rate cuts. The problem: What if a new chair can’t deliver the votes? The unusually deep divide over a potential December cut, which doesn’t happen unless Powell forces it, underscores that this isn’t a hypothetical for 2026. The Fed chair is

Kevin Hassett, who is a candidate for Fed chair, tells Larry Kudlow that the only way to explain a Fed decision not to cut in December would be due to anti-Trump partisanship. "There are a bunch of Fed speakers the last couple of days saying, 'Hold on now with more rate cuts.'

The BLS says there won't be an October CPI and that the November CPI will be released on Dec. 18 (about a week later than scheduled). The employment cost index for the third quarter will be released on Dec. 10 (the second day of the Fed meeting) https://t.co/mla6fGCLMI

This is an important contribution to the debate over the December rate cut, from NY Fed President John Williams, a top Powell lieutenant: “I still see room for a further adjustment in the near term to the target range for the federal-funds rate to move the stance of policy

A Fannie executive and Pulte ally was accused in an official complaint to the company's ethics team of ordering a fellow executive to quickly print out Schiff’s mortgage files for Pulte. The Fannie official who printed out the documents said in the complaint that the process was

Philadelphia Fed President Anna Paulson (2026 voter) says she supported cutting rates at the last two meetings and remains "a little more worried about the labor market" than inflation. https://t.co/ZB0acEjW1Z She notes that almost all job growth through September has been

Permanent job losers ticked above 2 million and to 1.2% of the workforce, both highs for the cycle.

The unemployment rate, at 4.44% in Sept, has moved up by one tenth every month since June. The index of aggregate weekly payrolls (a good proxy for nominal income growth which correlates well with NGDP growth) was +4.7% YoY, and +4.4 over the last three months (annualized).

It is difficult to tell how the September jobs report will resolve divisions on a fractured Federal Reserve. https://t.co/7ktqSObuz2 For the hawks: If your bar to cut was seeing some kind of rapid or significant deterioration that has not been evident in the data, then you will

Private-sector payroll growth using a 3-month moving average ticked up to 57,000 in September from a cycle low of 16,000 in August. Using a longer 6-month average, private sector payrolls edged down to 58,000 in September, a new cycle low

Job growth was revised to -4,000 in August. Employers added 119,000 jobs in Sept. The unemployment rate rose to 4.4%

“Without compelling data, it’s actually hard to get people who have pre-existing perspectives to all come to consensus,” said Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin. Because there’s been no new data to forge consensus, “you could argue it out, and maybe that’s what we’ll do.”

https://t.co/XavmbytYoW

The Fed minutes underscore what has emerged since the meeting: There may now be a narrow majority of officials (not necessarily FOMC voters) who favor holding steady in December. "Many" is greater than "several." December is shaping up to be a close call.

A cheat sheet for the FOMC minutes: "Some" is more than "several" according to this staff analysis piece published eight years ago https://t.co/5hWZT98wUK

Fed officials have insisted they can still do their job forecasting the economy without the top-tier data everyone uses to calibrate their analysis of the second- and third-tier data, but market probabilities of a Dec cut —which has been shaping up to be a close call—have fallen