Some professional market participants are fretting that the government shutdown will delay the release of economic reports. The last of our worries about a short-term government shutdown should be delays in one month’s CPI inflation and jobs reports. Unfortunately, the misguided Fed tends to rely more on the ever-revised BLS jobs reports in establishing monetary policy — enough said! Eventually, the timing may change: with President Trump’s blessing, the SEC is considering allowing companies to provide earnings reports on a semiannual basis. If the ultimate purpose of BLS reports is to measure employment and other economic data in order to inform the Fed on its monetary policies, they’re leading them astray.