That CPI report got a Black Friday discount

December 18, 2025

25 min episode · 2 min read

Andrew Prokop

Episode

25 min

Read time

2 min

AI-Generated Summary

Published Dec 21, 2025

Key Takeaways

✓Inflation Data Quality: November CPI report lacks October comparison and only captures discounted Black Friday prices, making month-to-month analysis impossible and potentially misleading.
✓Housing Market Reset: Mortgage rates stabilizing around 6.3% with only 1% home price growth expected in 2026, creating first prolonged affordability improvement since Great Recession.
✓Economist Influence Decline: Both political parties increasingly ignore economic modeling and expertise, preferring intuitive policies like price controls despite economists' warnings about unintended consequences.
✓AI Infrastructure Debt Risk: Companies borrowing nearly $7 trillion globally for AI data centers face uncertainty about rental income sustainability when five-year lease contracts expire.

What It Covers

November inflation data shows 2.7% annual increase, but missing October data and Black Friday discounts make the report unreliable for economic forecasting.

Key Questions Answered

•Inflation Data Quality: November CPI report lacks October comparison and only captures discounted Black Friday prices, making month-to-month analysis impossible and potentially misleading.
•Housing Market Reset: Mortgage rates stabilizing around 6.3% with only 1% home price growth expected in 2026, creating first prolonged affordability improvement since Great Recession.
•Economist Influence Decline: Both political parties increasingly ignore economic modeling and expertise, preferring intuitive policies like price controls despite economists' warnings about unintended consequences.
•AI Infrastructure Debt Risk: Companies borrowing nearly $7 trillion globally for AI data centers face uncertainty about rental income sustainability when five-year lease contracts expire.

Notable Moment

Wyoming researchers avoid using the word "coal" in marketing alternative uses, calling it "carbon ore" instead to overcome negative environmental associations.

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