Some divergence from Cleveland Fed nowcast vs. Bloomberg consensus:
Figure 1: PCE deflator (black), Cleveland Fed nowcast (red triangle), Bloomberg consensus on 10/25 (blue square). September nowcasts/forecasts using year-on-year changes. Source: BEA, Cleveland Fed, Bloomberg, and author’s calculations.
Off topic – but very good news from ISW
https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-25-2026/
“The Ukrainian jet-powered drone interception rate dropped from 77 percent to about 74 percent during the October 14 to 24 period of Starshield service disruptions”
So it turns out that after having recovered from the surprise block on Starshield for home defense, Ukraine’s alternative systems performed almost as good. This is probably why Musk/Trump turned it back on again. It would be terrible if Europe discovered that the US makes very little difference for their defenses. At this time Trump seems to have very little leverage over Ukraine.
Putin is demanding that Ukraine surrender, even as he seems to be slowly losing the ground war and nobody ever won a war from the air (even Israel had to put ground troops into Gaza – and still haven’t gained full control and surrender). Putins best hope was to order his orange puppet to put full pressure on Ukraine, but at this time even when Trump follows orders and do the worst he can to Ukraine, it makes very little difference.
OT response to Ivan
The two concerns I have about Ukraine’s current defense against the jet-powered drones are:
1) the contribution from F16s is probably costly and the level of use was already creating maintenance needs that exceed Ukraine’s capacity.
2) Russia has been improving its ability to innovate the drones and has vastly improved its ability to ramp up production. I suspect that China (and some cheap labor from DPRK) has been hugely helpful here.
To put Ukraine back on topic, consider what the war there (and in Iran) is teaching us about the vulnerability of our modern economies to very low–cost attacks on data centers and electricity infrastructure. Tech bros love hyperscaling, but it might take only $50k worth of drones to wreck a $50 billion data center.
Yes the F16 use is costly and not the long-term solution. But it’s there and it works as a tie over. Remember that there are a lot of F16s in Europe that are kind of outdated, that is why so many European countries have given some of theirs to Ukraine.
But the real answer is AI powered defensive drone swarms that can cover large areas. Combine that with links to AI controlled high caliper machine guns (anti-aircraft weapons) that can do precision defense at closer range.
As in all wars there is an innovation war between Russia and Ukraine. So far Ukraine seems to be the overall winner – partly because they are absolutely brilliant at strategic thinking and planning. For both parties it’s a question of attack cost vs. defense costs but Ukraine is backed by the $30 trillion EU economy, whereas Russia is a puny little $2 trillion economy. The strategic advantage for Ukraine is that they have a much smaller area to cover defensively than Russia. So the cost to defend will be an order of magnitude smaller.
Bad gateway. Maybe someone is unhappy at what ISW has to say.
Americans’ public education and literacy level is now inferior to Brazil’s literacy levels. Republicans’ hollowing out of good public schools and decently paid teachers has now paid off in Americans treasuring democracy less than your average Brazilian. Congrats FOX news, you have destroyed working class America.
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-oligarchs-lose-a-big-one
Take a bow FOX, People like Bruce Hall now enjoy laying in their own feces. You win Rupert.
Speaking of Bruce Hall level of stupidity Trump is worried his Alaskan minions will be confused by Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr.
versus Sullivan, Dan S. (Registered Republican) Incumbent.
One’s IQ would have to be i the single digit not to know which Sullivan was the Republican incumbent. But yea Bruce Hall is THAT STUPID.
No, he’s not stupid! We are talking about people who would vote Republican if they could figure out who the Republican is, not the general populace! He’s right to be worried that *those* people will get confused and screw up!
Both Dans are right-wingers. The real problem isn’t that Democrats cleverly wedged a confusing Dan onto the ballot. The real problem is that two right-wing candidates of any name split the vote. This happens whenever a third candidate is in the ballot. Perot. Nader. The result is usually that the guy on the third-party candidate’s side of the political spectrum loses.
The “Dan” issue is just opportunism in the part of Republicans. Not working.
No, Alaska has ranked choice voting. That largely eliminates the issue of a third-party spoiler. If there were ranked choice voting in Florida in 2000, then most of Nader’s 100,000 second choice votes would have gone to Gore rather than Bush, far overwhelming any hanging chad disputes.
In Alaska, if there are a few spoiler voters who are confused by the two Dans, they just have to rank their last choice as the Democrat and the Republican Dan will get their votes.
… the point being, not only is the DOJ’s interference in the Alaska state election unconstitutional, they are too ignorant to know that their claim of a third-party spoiler in a ranked choice election is impossible when you have only two viable candidates, as in this election. They are mathematically inept.
Or more likely, they know they don’t have a case but hope to blow smoke in the faces of the courts to delay certification. Trump ordered AG Blanche to file a frivolous suit and he jumped to it.
The split vote issue is more likely to happen in TN governors election (although without any name confusion). Marsha Blackburn and a right wing businessman are fighting each other with nasty attack adds, whereas the Democrats candidate basically has stayed with soft non-attack adds about being a mother and wanting to fight for families. She has no chance of winning 50%+ but may end up as the candidate with the most votes (and in TN there is no rank choice).
Recall that in 2010 Lisa Murkowski lost the primary but won the Senate general election as a write-in candidate. Apparently enough Alaskans were smart enough to write-in and correctly spell her name.
As pointed out previously, Alaska has ranked choice voting. If some hypothetical voters are confused about the two Sullivans, all they have to do is rank them as their top two choices.
This isn’t about fairness. This is just a ploy to tie up the winner in lawsuits, preventing them from being seated possibly for many months, as in the case of Al Franken.
Vucic out. Lula stays. Good day.