Cutting through the noise of today’s inflation report
Segments From this episode
Making the inflation report make sense
Overall inflation ticked up in December, says the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The consumer price index shows that prices rose 3.4% year over year in December — higher than the number the month before, which was 3.1%. But if you take out food and energy, inflation slowed down slightly. Let’s discuss with Julia Coronado, founder and president of MacroPolicy Perspectives.
Getting better — but still with a tall mountain to climb
According to a report by the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an IRS watchdog, there’s still lots of room for improvement on things like processing tax returns and answering phone calls. But the IRS is making progress.
A reluctant approval by the SEC
The Securities and Exchange commission has just made it a lot easier for people to invest in Bitcoin. After a decade, the SEC reluctantly approved the trading of an exchange-traded fund for Bitcoin. SEC Chair Gary Gensler made a point of coming out and saying “we do not approve or endorse Bitcoin.” For more, we chat with have Ari Redbord, a former federal prosecutor and U.S. Treasury Department official who’s now Global Head of Policy at cryptocurrency compliance firm TRM Labs.
