Australia’s central bank has reduced its benchmark interest rate for the first time since October 2020 as the nation’s inflation cools.

Another key inflation gauge came in hotter than expected Thursday with wholesale prices up 3.5% over the past year and the cost of goods up 0.6% in one month.

The monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 0.5% in January 2025 and by 3.0% over the last twelve months. The CPI is generally regarded as THE definitive measurement of inflation in the United States although it is more of an approximate indicator than anything else because how much inflation you might personally be experiencing is more accurately a function of (a) how you spend your money each month, and (b) where you live. To better understand why the widely reported CPI numbers will never accurately reflect your experience with inflation, it is helpful to understand how the monthly CPI is determined. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is in charge of calculating the CPI and they do this by collecting, either monthly or bi-monthly, prices on around 80,000 different goods and services. They collect this data in 75 urban areas and from around 23,000 retail and service firms. They also collect data on rents people are paying from about 50,000 landlords and tenants. Because of the understandable focus on collecting data only in urban areas, the typically higher prices that approximately 46 million American consumers living in rural communities, like eastern Colorado, pay for goods and services, aren’t included in the calculations. Once all the data is collected and averaged (price increases occur unevenly across the country because of local conditions, different sales tax rates, etc.), each item is placed in an imaginary shopping basket and how much “space” each item occupies in that basket is based on how much money the BLS considers an average American consumer will spend on that item each month. Every item is given a number or “weight” and all the weights add to 100. For example, eggs have a CPI weighting of 0.172 which means that the BLS is assuming that 0.172% of every dollar an average American consumer spends each month, will be spent on eggs. Translating this, if your household spends $3,542 on everything you normally spend money on each month (a 2022 study by the Colorado Health Foundation indicated that the median income of 181,000 residents in eastern Colorado was $42,500 a year), you will spend $6.09 a month on eggs. So less than a dozen eggs... and in Colorado, because of the idiotic recent ban on the sale of eggs laid by caged chickens, you’d be lucky to get half a dozen store-bought eggs two weeks past the use-by date for $6.09. The January CPI report notes that the average price of eggs has gone up 53% over the last twelve months. We all know it has gone up way more than that in Colorado. The most important categories in the imaginary shopping basket and thus the ones with the biggest impact on the monthly CPI number are food costs (13.691), energy costs (6.216), and shelter (35.483). With a weighting of 35.483, the BLS assumes that the average American consumer is spending 35.483% of their available income each month on where they live. If they spend $3,542 a month on everything (returning to the egg example), that is $1,256.80 per month on renting or owning, insuring and/or occasionally staying at a motel from time to time (motel costs are part of the CPI shelter category). The January CPI report notes that between January 2024 and January 2025, the cost of renting increased by 4.2%, the cost of owning a home increased by 4.4%, the cost of staying at a motel by 1.9%, and the cost of tenant/household insurance by 2.1%. (I’m pretty sure my insurance premium went up by WAY more than 2.1% this year!). Gas has a weighting of 2.902 in the CPI. For someone spending $3,542 month, this calculates at $102.79 a month on gas for their non-electric car. I imagine many residents of eastern Colorado spend more. (I know I do.) I’m willing to bet that no one in the United States spends money on the same proportions that the BLS assumes. For starters, there are so many items included that it isn’t possible for everyone to buy all of them. (I myself don’t buy cigarettes, instant coffee, college textbooks or baby food.) But leaving aside the fact that the average American consumer doesn’t really exist, Coloradans are already well ahead when it comes to price increases because monthly reports by the Senate Joint Economic Council in DC that compare inflation rates in different states, show that Colorado tops the list as the state with THE highest inflation rate (almost 20% higher than average) in the nation! Next time you see or hear a report about the latest CPI number, nod and smile quietly to yourself knowing that it is just an estimate of inflation and probably isn’t anywhere near close to the inflation rate you are experiencing.

Norway's central bank is nearing its first interest rate cut in five years, although keeping inflation in check will require a higher cost of borrowing than for much of the last decade, Norges Bank governor Ida Wolden Bache said on Thursday.

Inflation is back in the spotlight as broad-based price pressures hit U.S. producers in January 2025, fueling concerns that businesses will either absorb rising costs or pass them to consumers and dampening hopes for Federal Reserve interest rate cuts.

Inflation in the U.K. rose to a 10-month high in January, official figures showed Wednesday, an increase that will likely diminish expectations of rapid interest rate reductions from the Bank of England.

Inflation in the U.K. rose to a 10-month high in January, an increase that will likely diminish expectations of rapid interest rate reductions from the Bank of England.

The central bank had held its policy rate steady at 4.35% since November 2023, following an extended period of 13 rate hikes to tame inflation at home.

The Reserve Bank of Australia on Tuesday cut benchmark interest rates for the first time in over four years, joining ranks with other major global central banks, as softening inflation allows room for easing policy.

Wednesday's consumer price index report showed that inflation is punching back — and Trump could end up facing the same challenges that dragged down Biden.

I mean the war on inflation. Shoppers, understandably, are still freaking out in the grocery aisles, most recently over egg prices. Meanwhile, economists, politicos and pundits continue to sweat allegedly “sticky” categories for goods and services and rising wages – especially after January’s Consumer Price Index accelerated.