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Slack.com slash DHQ. The episode in which we separate the inflation forest from the inflation

trees from American public media, this is Market Plants.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kai, a Rizdoleist Thursday. Today, the 12th of January, good as always

to have you along, everybody. I'm going to mix my metaphors right here at the top apologies

in advance. We are in fact going to do a little forest for the trees with this morning's

release of the December consumer price index. But what we've got here just as a headline

is a little bit of half full half empty. Consumer prices were up 6.5% over the past year.

That is all in, which is to say with the always volatile food and energy components. And

6.5% as you know, is way more than 2% which is where the Federal Reserve wants inflation

to be. On the other hand, which I guess is actually a third metaphor, I'm sorry. Inflation

has been slowing since June. In fact, 6.5% is the smallest year over your increase since

October of 2021. Marketplace is just in ho. It's on the glass half full beat today.

On average, prices actually fell in December, compared to the month before. When you factor

in things like energy costs, which dropped and food prices, which went up but more slowly,

Kayla Brune at morning consult says people notice that kind of thing.

So when you see grocery costs at least grow less quickly, that's something that I think

consumers will be happy about. Food and energy prices are notoriously volatile. So

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