NPR. It has been a hard summer for our nation's central bank, the Federal Reserve.

Right. The president has been on the attack calling the Fed chair Jay Powell a numskull.

That's a quote. And the White House is looking into a remodel of the Fed's historic headquarters, which ran over budget.

I wouldn't blame the staff for wanting to take a vacation right now, but they're clearly still hard at work.

Last week, right on schedule, the Federal Reserve published the summary of commentary

on current economic conditions. Better known as the beige book. And so if the Fed can work through

the noise and do their job, we can work through the noise and do our job. Which is to read the

beige book cover to cover and find stuff we think is provocative,

informative, and even a little bit funny.

Yeah, you've got to keep that sense of humor.

It's the Bezia Awards, our eight times a year's salute to the art and science of telling

stories about the economy.

I'm Robert Smith.

And I'm Adrian Ma.

The most recent beige book shows Americans are finding ways to spend less money, including

on their vacations.

On today's show, you might just learn a few tricks to do holidays on the cheap.

A penny saved is a penny earn.

Wait, who said that? After the break.

I always like to remind everyone how this award show works. There are 12 regional banks in the

Federal Reserve System. Each one studies their local economy and writes stories about it in the

beige book.

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