In just the week before Trump took power, CFPB: - ordered Equifax to pay $15M - ordered a major auto lender to return $10M to customers - ordered CashApp to refund $120M to customers - sued Capital One for cheating people out of interest payments This week it's closed.

When a leading economist creates a "running read on the health of the economy" and doesn't include anything on consumer debt, which is currently eating up 50 cents of every dollar in wage gains that workers get, it gives you a pretty clear sense of how we ended up in this mess

Worrisome strategy form a top Dem. 1. By defn if the bill gets to potus’s desk ~everyone in the caucus voted for it (not just the left). 2. Trump vetoing bills to make health care cheaper is a good political outcome for Dems (& makes it more likely that we win in 28 to do this).

73% of your campaign donations go to consultants and vendors; only 13% goes toward ads. This is 4x the cut consultants made 20 years ago. Important work by @JakeMGrumbach and Adam Bonica on the capture of the Democratic Party by consultants. newrepublic.com/article/2163…

New: Private equity has grown far beyond its traditional focus on restructuring big corporations. @CharlieEatonPhD and coauthors map 4 roles it plays in our economy: Corporate Raider, Main Street Invader, Monopoly Builder, and Shadow Owner. @ewarren explains why this matters: 🧵

This Halloween, the real jump scare is how high candy prices are under Trump’s economy. Check out this new report 🔽

Watch @AngelaHanks on @cnbc explaining how fast-rising consumer debt is eating up any wage increases that workers have gotten cnbc.com/video/2026/10/16/de…

"Supercore" inflation, which tracks core services excluding housing, came in hot for the second month in a row in September. It rose 0.4% on a monthly basis. Over the past three months, it has risen at an annual rate of nearly 4.6% nytimes.com/live/2026/10/14/… @nytimes @bencasselman

If we look at real income net of consumer debt, we get an even better picture of how families are faring tcf.org/content/report/half-…

Scott Bessent went to the trouble of building his own tracker to try to refute Senator Warren's, filled with half-hearted attempts to blame Biden. Kind of hard to blame others when his own government is reporting inflation numbers that wipe out the last 6 months of wage gains

Inflation has nearly wiped out all wage gains since January 2025. That's how big of gamechanger the war in Iran has been on Americans' finances. Since January 2025: CPI Inflation has grown +5.4% Wages (average hourly earnings) +5.5% This is a very different picture from President Trump's first term when wages were up over 15%, well above about 8% inflation. It helps explain the frustration many households feel right now with the economy.

This is an incredible column from Michelle Singletary that uses research from @Edi_Nilaj, Janelle Jones, @AngelaHanks and @AissaRCanchola to show pay raises aren't saving families from drowning in debt washingtonpost.com/business/…

I’m excited to announce the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator is launching the AI Governance Project, led by VPA’s @asad09! For a few years, VPA has been working on AI policy, but at this critical moment, we’re now expanding our efforts. 1/3

The Trump Administration continues to claim that the economy is strong, but this tracker shows clearly just how much families are being squeezed. Kudos to @SenateBanking for doing the math on this

I love that Walmart states emphatically that they price products not people, then tries to explain away a patent that literally says "if a customer has tuna fish, they may be offered a different price on mayonnaise." Go @owenslindsay1

What a great lineup!