Though the initial critical reception of 1992’s The Muppet Christmas Carol was mixed (a thumbs down on Siskel & Ebert!), modern wisdom and taste have caught up to the precious pointedness of the pint-sized production, with the movie now being lauded as “the greatest Christmas film ever made”.

This week, the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee (FOMC) held its final monetary policy gathering of the year, and it used the occasion to slash its policy target rate one more time. While the economic data flow remains impaired by the 43-day government shutdown, the committee saw enough weakness in the labor market to feel it needed to ease policy for the third time in as many meetings.