Mark Zandi: Missing data from October and November combined with tariffs means inflation is still probably higher than it appears, closer to 3% year over year rather than 2.6%

From the story here: 

... “The bottom line is, I think inflation is still uncomfortably high,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s. “Inflation for staples, necessities, remains elevated.” ... 

Tariffs levied by President Donald Trump have put upward pressure on the inflation rate, Zandi said. ...

“I think were it not for the tariffs, we would have been back to target already,” Zandi said. “But tariffs have pushed up inflation a little over half a [percentage] point.” ...

Overall, the headline inflation rate is higher than it appears on paper, Zandi said. The record-long government shutdown, which ran from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12, prevented federal statisticians from collecting typical inflation data in October. Without that data, the BLS assumed that no price increases had taken place during the month for most categories of goods and services, Zandi said. Moody’s estimates the annual CPI inflation rate would be around 3% if that data were included, he said. ...

Overall CPI inflation, not seasonally adjusted, came in at 2.7% year over year in December 2025, while core CPI inflation was lower at 2.6% in today's report:

overall

core

 

Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 both post new closing highs today

 

Trump attack on Powell causes Senate Republicans Tillis and Murkowski to threaten to block his future nominees to the Fed

Good. 

Powell investigation: Drumbeat of Republican opposition grows on Capitol Hill

Today's silver high held at $85.75, but gold nudged it higher again to $4,629.94

 More.

Gold hits record high $4,627.27, silver hits record high $85.75

Story here.

Former Fed Chairs finally stand up for Powell in public

 Greenspan, Bernanke, and Yellen say Trump using ‘prosecutorial attacks’ to undermine Fed

... “The reported criminal inquiry into Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell is an unprecedented attempt to use prosecutorial attacks to undermine that independence,” a statement backed by more than a dozen signatories said.

“This is how monetary policy is made in emerging markets with weak institutions, with highly negative consequences for inflation and the functioning of their economies more broadly,” it continued. “It has no place in the United States whose greatest strength is the rule of law, which is at the foundation of our economic success.” ... 

“The Federal Reserve’s independence and the public’s perception of that independence are critical for economic performance, including achieving the goals Congress has set for the Federal Reserve of stable prices, maximum employment, and moderate long-term interest rates,” the statement said. ...

Now I get it: The liberal Republican who now runs Trump's Department of Labor likes to get drunk at the office and shitpost Nazi stuff like Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer

 And CNBC finally notices Jan. 16th:

Labor Dept. accused of echoing Nazi slogan in social media post

 

 

OMG, Walter Russell Mead for The Wall Street Journal is ENTERTAINED by the tyrant's show

I'm told the band on the Titanic played well right to the very end. 

 

Trump Captivates the Globe

Walter Russell Mead, Wall Street Journal

... It is not merely that his high-wire act supports and intensifies the drama and excitement that made him the dominant figure in American and then global politics for the past decade. It is also that his ability, real or perceived, to change the course of world politics on a whim increases his leverage at home and abroad. When a man can make war or peace, promote or block trade, make you rich or freeze you out, other people do what they can to stay on his good side. ... 

Mad King Ludwig's disgusting vendetta against Jerome Powell escalates into DOJ criminal probe of Fed Chair's oversight of building renovations

 What this really is is Mad King Ludwig's builder's envy. He thinks he should be in charge of the literal remaking of every Washington edifice, just as he thinks he should be in charge of everything else, including interest rates.

Powell's term expires on May 15, but the lunatic we put in charge of the country just can't let Powell fade away without picking this disgusting fight over nothing.

The Department of Justice should be ashamed of itself, but like most MAGAts, it is incapable of shame. 

Watch here. 

 

 

Meanwhile Iran is melting down with anti-government protests and violence with 2,000 dead in just the last two days, but Mad King Ludwig doesn't have a carrier strike group deployed to the Middle East

 

Yeah right, the devil made him do it, poor fella

 

Left's Demonization of ICE Agents Led To This Tragedy

Douglas MacKinnon, The Hill

 

... Can these months-long and years-long barrages of dehumanizing attacks on any one individual or organization trigger an already disturbed mind to cross an uncrossable line and attempt the worst? Sadly, a very strong case can be made for that eventuality. ...

 

Click through and observe that Real Clear Politics gave it the title which The Hill, and presumably the author, would not.

 

You people who aren't welcoming ICE as liberators are the real problem. :-(

 

And then you look at the html and realize they aren't very confident in their messaging in the first place:

 

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5681602-ice-shooting-minneapolis-tragedy/ .

 

And my bookmark software comes up with something even more different:

 

 

 

 

 

Hey Look! Labor's Share of Business Income has never been LOWER than under our lord and saviour, king and high muckety muck, Uniparty Poopulist President Donald J. Trump

 The Golden Age . . . for business, not for you.

 3Q2025, updated Jan 8, 2026:

Domestic terrorism is when all the credit card companies move to Kristi Noem's South Dakota so they can charge you 20-30%

 

ICE Minneapolis shooting: Noem calls Good’s actions ‘domestic terrorism’

 

 

 

If Trump had any true populist balls, he'd push for permanent 10% credit card interest rate caps

 

Trump calls for one-year cap on credit card interest rates at 10%

 

... Independent U.S. Sen Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a fierce Trump critic, and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, a Republican, have previously introduced bipartisan legislation to cap credit card interest rates at 10% for five years. This bill explicitly directs credit card companies to limit rates as part of broader consumer relief legislation. 

Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida have also introduced a bill in the House to cap credit card interest rates at 10%, reflecting cross-aisle interest in addressing high rates. ...

ExxonMobil tells Trump that Venezuela is uninvestable [sic], Trump stiffs ConocoPhillips, Chevron, already there, is ready to go go go

 What the Big Oil executives told Trump about investing in Venezuela

... “We’ve had our assets seized there twice, and so you can imagine to re-enter a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we’ve historically seen here,” Woods told Trump at the White House. “If we look at the legal and commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela today, it’s uninvestable.” ...

ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance congratulated Trump on ousting former President Nicolás Maduro. He said the banking sector will need to help restructure Venezuela’s debt and provide billions of dollars in financing for the restore [sic] the country’s infrastructure. ... Trump told the Conoco CEO that the U.S. government is not looking at recovering the assets the company lost during the 2007 nationalization.

“We’re not going to look at what people lost in the past, because that was their fault,” Trump said. “That was a different president. You’re going to make a lot of money, but we’re not going to go back.” ...

Vice Chairman Mark Nelson said Chevron has a way forward to rapidly ramp up its production, which currently stands at about 240,000 barrels per day.

“We have a path forward here very shortly to be able to increase our liftings from those joint ventures 100% essentially effective immediately,” Nelson told Trump. “We are also able to increase our production within our own disciplined investment schemes by about 50% just in the next 18 to 24 months.” ...

Looks like ICE agent Jonathan Ross learned the technique of intentionally stepping in front of moving vehicles to justify using deadly force while working for the border patrol in Texas 2007-2015

 

Trump said we're not going to have Russia as a neighbor lol

"Right now, we are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not because if we don't do it Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we're not going to have Russia or China as a neighbour. Okay? I would like to make a deal, you know, the easy way. But if we don't do it the easy way, we're going to do it the hard way."

Here. 

Who's going to tell him?

I hope this doesn't mean Alaska is . . . for sale. 

 

 

ICE agent filmed his murder of Renee Good, shifted camera from his shooting hand to his left hand ten seconds before he pulled the trigger, showing he pre-meditated use of force before there was even a reason

 

Video taken by the ICE agent who shot Renee Good in Minnesota on Wednesday was apparently leaked to a right wing website, Alpha News, last night. The video clearly shows Good steering to drive around and away from him when she was shot, in direct contradiction to Trump and Vance's claims that she was deliberately trying to run him over. Interestingly, it also shows him changing his phone from his right hand to his left hand ten seconds before the fatal shots were fired, which freed up his right hand to draw the weapon.

Here.

 

The ICE agent premeditated his use of force at second 31 in this video he took, probably because of the nasty interchange between him and Renee Good's "husband": 

 

 

 

CBS News, now run by Trump-friendly Bari Weiss, decided not to run this clip showing all the ways ICE agent Jonathan Ross was in the wrong

 But you can see it here.

 

David Brooks: When it comes to fueling rage, it's all on ICE because they are incendiary, unrestrained, acting like thugs

... As to the events of what actually happened, I'm not going to render a judgment on what happened, because we're going to have an investigation. I will leave it to them. And I hope Minnesota has full information to do the investigation.

But what Jonathan said is absolutely correct, that the atmosphere that ICE has created is incendiary, that people who have power and have guns are supposed to exercise restraint, and they are doing the opposite. And the crust of civilization is thin. And once people with guns and with power begin acting like thugs, well, then things are going to spiral. And that's what we have seen. ...

More.

 

 

 

Trump's mortgage bond proposal imitates his own "stupid" Jerome Powell on the financing side to reduce interest rates, which is what helped make homes 50% more unaffordable in the first place

 

The perfect storm of government MBS purchases and sub-3% mortgages through ZIRP in 2021 combined to rocket housing values by 50%.

Housing reached record low affordability a year later, falling to 17.22%.

Yeah, let's do more of that.

Back in the 1990s, before Bill Clinton and the Uniparty got a hold of it and turned it into a commodity, housing was stable and affordable as median income bought 25% of a home. 

Trump hasn't gotta clue what to do.

 

 Mortgage rates drop to lowest level in nearly 3 years as Trump orders buying of $200 billion in mortgage bonds

... In the first two months of the Covid pandemic, as markets reeled, the Federal Reserve purchased $580 billion in agency MBS. It then continued buying more throughout the year. From March 2020 through June 2021, the Federal Reserve increased its agency MBS holdings from $1.4 trillion to $2.3 trillion, according to the Dallas Fed.

The Federal Reserve also lowered its own lending rate to zero. The combination brought the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage to record lows, hitting just 2.75% at the start of 2021, according to Mortgage News Daily. ...

... But Zelman also points out that in the broader home market it’s not just the mortgage rate, but overall affordability that is keeping buyers sidelined. Consumers are stretched, and home prices are close to 50% higher than they were pre-pandemic, ironically because of those record-low mortgage rates brought on by MBS purchases. ...

 

 

Federal employment in Dec 2025 is about what it was in 2014 under Obama, despite 277,000 employees sent packing since January 2025

 Trump has cut the federal workforce by about 9.2%, but federal employment has actually grown a little since October. Year over year in December federal employment is down 274,000.

Year over year in December local government employment in the United States has grown by 170,000, while state government employment nationwide is down 45,000. 

The three categories yield a net cut in government employment at all levels nationwide year over year of 149,000.

 

 

Donald Trump has so far done nothing to boost manufacturing employment, which is down 208,000 since Feb 2023 through Dec 2025

Trump's peak average was 12.779 million manufacturing employees in 2019.

We're at 12.732 million on average in 2025.

The 2023 average was 12.873 million, the post-Great Recession peak.

 

The unemployment LEVEL has come down since the summer, but is still higher in Dec 2025 than it was when Trump was elected in November 2024, by 295,000

 

Foreign born employment ROSE in December 2025, by 310,000

 

More people than ever are NOT in the labor force under Donald Trump in Dec 2025, 104.094 million, worse than COVID!, and 37.57% on average in 2025 were eating but not working

The Rush Limbaugh-Donald Trump Dumb Ass Unemployment Rate Dec 2025 spiked to 37.87%

The unemployment rate in 2025 averaged 4.26% for 11 months of data even as initial claims for unemployment averaged an historically low, if not the lowest, 224k per week

The low but rising unemployment rate on a monthly basis since 2023 seems out of whack with a relatively flat initial claims average on an annual basis since 2021.

 

Just 49.02% had a full time job in December 2025

 The October data remains missing, so the average for 11 months of 2025 comes in at 49.3%, down from 49.65% in 2024.

Full time has been trending lower on a monthly basis since the recent period peak in Jun 2023 at 50.92%

 

Why not both?

 

Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not. 

-- RFK 

Mad King Ludwig in the news

 

Injured, my foot

 Watch.

WaPo: ICE agent was able to move out of the way because victim steered car to the right to flee, and fired shots two and three from the side of the vehicle through the open window

 

 Here:

 ICE agent was not in the vehicle’s path when he fired the fatal shots, video shows

... The SUV did move toward the ICE agent as he stood in front of it. But the agent was able to move out of the way and fire at least two of three shots from the side of the vehicle as it veered past him, according to the analysis. ... The SUV quickly pulls forward, and then veers to the right, in the correct direction of traffic on the one-way street.

As the vehicle moves forward, video shows, the agent moves out of the way and at nearly the same time fires his first shot. The footage shows that his other two shots were fired from the side of the vehicle.

Videos examined by The Post, including one shared on Truth Social by Trump, do not clearly show whether the agent is struck or how close the front of the vehicle comes to striking him. ...

Video shows the agent walking around the scene for more than a minute after the shooting. ...

 

 

What happens to people?

 

In November we get to remind Stephen Miller that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, whose duty it is to alter or abolish government when it attacks life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, abroad or at home

 

 

 Stephen Miller Offers a Strongman’s View of the World

 ... “We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” Mr. Miller told Jake Tapper of CNN on Monday, during a combative appearance in which he was pressed on Mr. Trump’s long-held desire to control Greenland. ... 

 

 

It went back 240 years

 

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ownership announces it’s shutting down paper in May

ICE brutality and criminality can only be stopped by an overwhelming turnout for Democrats in November, and even then it will be difficult

ICE has $75 billion or so through September 2029.

ICE agents fatally shoot woman in Minneapolis, DHS says

 

Minneapolis woman shot and killed by ICE officer

 

Trump wouldn't know high quality oil if it started comin' out of his . . . whatever

 

Trump throws pro-lifers in America under the bus after betraying the anti-communists in Venezuela

The Federalist goes full-on Orwell: Intervention in Venezuela was a win for Anti-Interventionism

We had to intervene in Venezuela to preserve the policy of anti-interventionism. 

We had to destroy the village to save it.

We had to abandon free-market principles to save the free market system.

We had to attack the Confederacy in order to preserve the Union.

 

Maduro Raid a Win for America First Anti-Interventionism

John Davidson, Federalist

 

... Trump’s Venezuela policy these last three or four months — the stationing of a flotilla of U.S. warships off the coast, the systematic targeting of drug boats, the seizure of the oil tanker — was designed to hew as closely as possible to the anti-interventionist instincts and preferences of his MAGA base. We are not at war with Venezuela. We have no occupation force there. And yet Maduro is gone. ...

 

Maduro just magically disappeared!