THE SHOW NOTES: Extending The Ceasefire, Biden's Polling Gets Worse, & The Populist Right is Winning

Welcome! Virginia turned the sprinklers on when in-state rival Virginia Tech’s football team tried to take a picture after a 55-17 win.

MUST READ 1: Democrats Are Panicking About the Wrong Thing - Politico

MUST READ 2: The polls keep getting worse for Biden - Politico

FREE SPEECH: Irish Police Investigating Conor McGregor’s Tweets - Mediaite

QUOTE: “More than three dozen members of Congress have announced they will not seek re-election next year, some to pursue other offices and many others simply to get out of Washington. Twelve have announced their plans just this month.” - NYT (paywall)

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Israel

Mediators are working to secure the release of a third round of Israeli hostages from Hamas following a dispute over the hostage list. Israel has demanded that family members be released together while Hamas has been unable to locate all of its hostages.

Why this matters: At least 40 of the 184 remaining Israeli hostages are being held by Palestinian Islamic Jihad or other various street gangs inside Gaza. Hamas released a young girl yesterday without her mother which violated the terms of the agreement. Two American women are expected to be released today.

🚨 Breaking: With hours to spare, Qatar mediators announced that Hamas and Israel have reached a last-minute agreement which will extend the ceasefire by two additional days.

Holiday Spending

American shoppers spent a record $9.8 billion on Black Friday with online sales jumping by 7.5% from the previous year. The gradual shift away from brick-and-mortar stores indicates a more cost-conscious American consumer willing to scour the web to save a few dollars.

Bad: Despite the record numbers, the use of “Buy Now, Pay Later” payment methods has boomed by 47% from last year to this year indicating that a growing number of Americans are simply unable to keep up with rising prices.

Worse: The average credit cardholder now keeps $6,568 in credit card debt which is more than a 10% increase from last year to this year.

Just How Bad Is the US Cost-of-Living Squeeze? We Did the Math

After years of inflation, US consumers are shouldering a burden unlike anything seen in decades — even as the pace of price increases has slowed.

It now requires $119.27 to buy the same goods and services a family could afford with $100 before the pandemic. Since early 2020, prices have risen about as much as they had in the full 10 years preceding the health emergency.

It’s hard to find an area of a household budget that’s been spared: Groceries are up 25% since January 2020. Same with electricity. Used-car prices have climbed 35%, auto insurance 33% and rents roughly 20%.

Those figures help explain why Americans continue to register strong dissatisfaction with the economy: Consumers’ daily routines have largely returned to their pre-pandemic normal, but the cost of living has not.

Full story at Bloomberg (paywall)

Donations to GOP drop as worries mount about the party’s finances

The Republican Party’s finances are increasingly worrisome to party members, advisers to former president Donald Trump, and other operatives involved in the 2024 election effort, according to 10 people familiar with the matter.

The Republican National Committee disclosed that it had $9.1 million in cash on hand as of Oct. 30, the lowest amount for the RNC in any Federal Election Commission report since February 2015. That compares with about $20 million at the same point in the 2016 election cycle and about $61 million four years ago, when Trump was in the White House.

The Democratic National Committee reported having $17.7 million as of Oct. 30, almost twice as much as the Republican Party, with one year before the election.

Full story at The Washington Post (paywall)

Investors Are Hungry for Risk—and Holding Record Cash Sums

Stocks and bonds have surged in November. With record investor balances in money-market funds, some analysts are optimistic that they have more room to run.

Everything from technology stocks to junk-rated company debt has been rising after an encouraging inflation report reinforced bets that the Federal Reserve can achieve a soft landing by cooling the economy without pushing it into a deep recession.

The S&P 500 is up 8.7% this month, while the Nasdaq Composite has climbed 11%. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which falls as bond prices rise, is down by nearly half a percentage point to 4.483%—a substantial move in a market where daily moves are measured in hundredths of a point.

Full story at The Wall Street Journal (paywall)

Trending news:

• Kamala Harris v. Gavin Newsom: The Coming Democratic Civil War - The Messenger

• Americans Under 30 Don’t Trust Religion — or Anything Else - DNYUZ

• Happy birthday, Adam Smith: The invisible hand just slapped Disney - The Hill

• Missiles fired from Yemen toward US warship that responded to attack on commercial tanker - CNN

• With Winter Comes Extreme Cold, but Does Climate Change Make it Worse? - The Liberal Patriot

• No one’s promising you can keep your doctor anymore - Politico

• Romney: Most Democrats would be an "upgrade" from Trump - Axios

• Moscow adds Meta spokesperson to criminal wanted list - Politico

• Alabama vs Auburn: How is this NOT holding? - Twitter

• ‘Mourning in America’: Poll finds pessimistic voters - NBC

• White House grapples with internal divisions on Israel-Gaza - The Washington Post (paywall)

• Voters See American Dream Slipping Out of Reach, WSJ/NORC Poll Shows - WSJ (paywall)

Market snapshot: