Fed braces for tough October showdown over interest-rate cuts

The Federal Reserve faces one of its toughest meetings in years this month, forced to make critical interest-rate decisions without the usual government data guiding its hand. Due to the blackout of critical data inflation and jobs data from the federal government shutdown, a precarious economic mix of sticky inflation and softening job growth from private sources are being studied. “This is probably the worst time for the Fed to be flying blind,” Kenneth Kuttner, a professor of  economics at Williams Co ...