The Lead Left’s exclusive Lead Left webinar, ”Of Rates and Recessions: What’s Ahead for the Economy,“ aired yesterday with over 400 attendees. We will dedicate space next week summarizing the views of our three expert economists. In the meantime, let’s position that conversation with a review of the state of our economic affairs as it stands today.

As our Quote of the Week highlights, there’s a sense some headwinds are slowing price rises. And select input costs such as crude oil, freight rates and wheat (per Lincoln International’s recent valuation deck) are down significantly from their peaks earlier in the year.

But CPI numbers remain stubbornly high. In part that’s due to housing, food, and medical costs, with the first driven by rents and mortgage rates, and the second by production bottlenecks and demand. (Healthcare cost increases, in a switch, are actually lower than inflation for the first time in forty years.)