Inflation is stubbornly steady

Summary

Podcast Summary: Marketplace Morning Report — “Inflation is stubbornly steady”

Date: January 13, 2026
Host: Sabri Benashour (in for David Brancaccio)
Length: ~8 minutes
Theme:
Today’s episode breaks down the latest U.S. inflation numbers, examines the debate over credit card interest rate caps, reviews legal news impacting the energy sector, and gets an insider's look at Google’s quantum computing lab.

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1. Inflation Report: Still Stuck, Not Worse

Key Segment: [00:01] – [02:11]

Headline Numbers:

• December’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) shows prices are up 2.7% year-over-year — unchanged from November.
• Month-to-month, prices increased by 0.3%.

Guest Insight:

• Jeffrey Cleveland, Chief Economist at Paden and Regal

Core Discussion Points:

• The core CPI (excluding food and energy) was a bit softer than expected: 0.2% increase for the month, 2.6% for the year.
• This “keeps the dream alive” for Wall Street, as it suggests the Fed could still cut interest rates if inflation continues this trajectory.

Notable Quotes:

• “The good news, especially for those folks on Wall Street at least, is that the much-watched core cpi ... was a bit softer than expected.”
  — Jeffrey Cleveland [00:40]
• “I think that keeps the dream alive ... for rate cuts, the Federal Reserve ... is waiting for inflation to continue to moderate.”
  — Jeffrey Cleveland [01:10]

What’s Getting Expensive?

• Food prices surged, with the overall food index up 0.7% in December. Food at home and away were both up notably.

• Cleveland emphasizes that for most people, a “softer” core CPI isn’t reassuring if food prices keep spiking.

  “They’re going to look at food and say, hey, no, this is a problem.”
  — Jeffrey Cleveland [01:57]

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2. Fourth Quarter Earnings & Credit Card Interest Rate Debate

Key Segment: [02:13] – [04:02]

Corporate Earnings:

• JPMorgan Chase reported net income of $57 billion — its second-best year ever.
• Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup earnings are coming up.

Policy Spotlight: Trump’s Call to Cap Credit Card Rates

• President Trump has proposed capping credit card interest rates at 10%, about half of current typical rates.

Expert Reactions:

• Analysts aren’t sure what legal powers Trump could use to enforce a cap.
• Ted Rossman (Bankrate):

  “The problem is that it just wouldn’t be profitable for banks and they would cut back on lending dramatically.” [02:59]

  • Credit card debt is riskier and thus carries higher rates.

  “One of the big reasons why credit Card rates are 3 or 4 or 5x higher than a lot of other financial products is it’s unsecured debt.” [03:13]

• Lauren Saunders (National Consumer Law Center):

  “The credit card companies make billions of dollars in profits off of credit cards, and they certainly have room to charge lower rates than they do today.” [03:42]

Implications:

• A strict cap may reduce access to credit for those with scores below 740, potentially dampening consumer spending and hurting the economy.
• Realistic reductions to rates might be a modest 1–2 percentage points, not down to 10%.

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3. Offshore Wind Project Legal Victory

Key Segment: [04:02] – [04:41]

• A federal judge overturned the Trump administration’s suspension of a nearly completed offshore wind project near Rhode Island.
  • The administration argued turbines posed a national security risk; the judge disagreed.
• The developer (Orsted, Denmark) says this wind farm will power 350,000 homes.
• After the ruling, Orsted shares rose 3.4%.

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4. Quantum Computing Race: Inside Google’s Quantum AI Lab

Key Segment: [05:11] – [08:19]

BBC Special Report: Faisal Islam tours Google’s Santa Barbara Quantum Lab.

Inside the Lab:

• Hartmut Neven (Lab Lead) and Julian Kelly (Senior Hardware Director) take listeners into a state-of-the-art facility.

Key Insights:

• The lab’s new chip, “Willow,” accomplishes calculations in minutes that would take today’s supercomputers “ten septillion years” (10 followed by 25 zeros).

  • “The power of these chips is rather mind boggling ... a benchmark computation ... took just a few minutes ... but would have taken ten septillion years on today’s top supercomputer.”
    — Hartmut Neven [06:37]

• Quantum computers rely on superconducting chips, which only work at extremely low temperatures (around -200°C or 77 Kelvin).

  • “It is one of the coldest places in the universe, colder than you’d find in outer space or really anywhere else.”
    — Julian Kelly [07:30]

Future Visions:

• By 2045, quantum computing could revolutionize drug discovery, food production, the energy economy, and more.

  • “It will enable us to discover drugs more efficiently. It will help us make food production more efficient ... to produce energy, to transport energy, to store energy ... to build technologies that make life more pleasant for all of us.”
    — Hartmut Neven [07:52]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Opening / CPI & Inflation Overview: [00:01]
• Core CPI & Market Reaction (Jeffrey Cleveland): [00:34]–[02:11]
• Earnings & Credit Card Rate Debate: [02:13]–[04:02]
• Offshore Wind Project Ruling: [04:02]–[04:41]
• Quantum Lab Tour, Google (BBC): [05:11]–[08:19]

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Memorable Moments/Quotes

• “They’re going to look at food and say, hey, no, this is a problem.”
  — Jeffrey Cleveland [01:57]
• “The problem is that it just wouldn’t be profitable for banks and they would cut back on lending dramatically.”
  — Ted Rossman [02:59]
• “A benchmark computation ... took just a few minutes here on the Willow chip, but it would have taken ten septillion years ... on today’s top supercomputer.”
  — Hartmut Neven [06:37]

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Summary Takeaways

• U.S. inflation is steady but still above Fed targets; Wall Street is relieved it hasn’t accelerated.
• Food prices are a pain point for everyday Americans.
• The debate over capping credit card interest rates is heated, with questions about legality, profitability, and access to credit.
• Clean energy projects are finding support in the courts against security-based challenges.
• Quantum computing may soon make today’s supercomputers look obsolete — with immense practical potential on the horizon.

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This episode offers a snapshot of inflation concerns, policy debate, energy law, and the next big thing in technology in less than 10 minutes.

Transcript

[A]

Inflation still high, but not worse. From Marketplace, I'm Sabri Ben, ashore in for David Brancaccio. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has just released the final inflation reading for 2025, the consumer price index for December. Spoiler alert, it is still too high. Prices were up 2.7% from the year before, but that was the same as it was in November. Between November and December, prices went up 3.10of a percent. Let's get into it with Jeffrey Cleveland, chief economist at Paden and Reg. Hi, Jeffrey.

[B]

Good morning.

[A]

So what are your first impressions of this number? 2.7% year over year, 3/10 of a percent month to month. What do you think?

[B]

The good news, especially for those folks on Wall street at least, is that the much watched core cpi, so it excludes food and energy, was a bit softer than expected. It was up 0.2% on the month and it's up 2.6% year on year, which is a little softer than expected. I think that's what markets are reacting to this morning.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Why are they mildly pleased about this?

[B]

I think that keeps the dream alive, Sabri. For rate cuts, the Federal Reserve, the central bank, is waiting for inflation to continue to moderate. There were some fears that inflation would be a little bit hotter in December after a pretty soft November report. So the fact that it came in softer than expected is overall good news.

[A]

What are some of the things that are getting more expensive faster than everything else? And is there anything that actually got cheaper?

[B]

Well, food in general was up quite sharply. The food index was up 0.7 in December. Food at home, which, you know, I tend to do a lot of food at home myself, that was up 0.7% in December. That's a big rise in the index. And food away from home was up as well. So food, I think, is one area for the, for the average person listening to this, they're not going to be comforted by core CPI being softer. They're going to look at food and say, hey, no, this is a problem.

[A]

Jeffrey Cleveland, chief economist at Paden and Regal, thank you so much.

[B]

Have a wonderful week.

[A]

Fourth quarter earnings season gets underway this week. This is where companies report back on how they did in the last quarter and what they see ahead. Kicking it off are some major banks. JPMorgan Chase reported its net income for the year was $57 billion, second best year ever. Tomorrow it's bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup. And one thing bank CEOs are sure to be asked about on their earnings calls is President Trump's call to cap credit card interest rates at 10%. That would be about half what they are now. Marketplace's Nova Safo has more on the pros and cons.

[C]

Analysts don't know what legal authority, if any, President Trump can use to compel banks to cap rates at 10%. But they do think there will be negative consequences for consumers. Ted Rossman is with Bankrate.

[D]

The problem is that it just wouldn't be profitable for banks and they would cut back on lending dramatically.

[C]

That's because credit card debt is inherently risky. It's not secured to an asset like a house or a car.

[D]

One of the big reasons why credit Card rates are 3 or 4 or 5x higher than a lot of other financial products is it's unsecured debt.

[C]

Some people don't pay it back. The trade group Electronic Payments Coalition says Trump's demand could leave anyone with a credit score below 740 effectively without credit card access, consumer spending could slow and hurt the economy.

[E]

We often hear the access to credit argument.

[C]

Lauren Saunders is with the National Consumer Law Center.

[E]

The credit card companies make billions of dollars in profits off of credit cards, and they certainly have room to charge lower rates than they do today.

[C]

How much room? Ted Rossman of Bankrate says maybe 1 or 2 percentage points lower than current rates. But but banks won't go as low as 10%. I'm Nova Safa for Marketplace.

[A]

And a federal judge has struck down the Trump administration's suspension of an offshore wind project off the coast of Rhode Island. The administration had argued the turbines, which were almost completely installed, posed a national security risk. The judge rejected that claim. The developer, a Danish firm called Orsted, said the turbines would power 350,000 homes. Shares of Orsted are up 3.4%.

[F]

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[A]

While markets are obsessed with artificial intelligence, there is another global tech competition running in the background. The race for quantum computing. By using quantum mechanics to drive computation, these machines could help solve problems that would take today's supercomputers millennia to figure out. We're not there yet, but the BBC's Faisal Islam got access to one site at the cutting edge of this technology. Google's Quantum Lab in Santa Barbara, California. And he gives us this tour.

[G]

Hello, I'm Hartmut. I'm the founder and lead of the Quantum AI Lab.

[H]

I'm Julian Kelly. Yeah, Senior director of hardware.

[I]

Thanks for showing us around this. This facility. Okay, so we're coming into a restricted area now and we're starting to see the real deal, the actual conversion of this high theoretical physics into an actual computer.

[G]

Let's take a look at our latest chip called Willow. And you see it looks a little bit like an Oreo in a way. It's. The chip is actually comprised of two parts, a larger part here, this large silver rectangle, this is our control electronics chip. And the qubits themselves, they sit in this little darker squares.

[I]

But the exponential power of quantum is what you're trying to harness with this chip we're holding here.

[G]

Yes, for certain computations, the power of these chips is rather mind boggling. So in December, we actually ran a benchmark computation on this chip which took just a few minutes here on the Willow chip, but it would have taken ten septillion years. This is the one with 25 zeros on today's top supercomputer.

[I]

So there's a special feature of this process which it happens extremely low temperatures and Julian wants to show us just how low that temperature is with some liquid nitrogen.

[H]

Liquid nitrogen, yeah, it's around minus 200 degrees Celsius, or 77 Kelvin. So we've got here just for example, a nice little clover and we can dump some liquid nitrogen onto it.

[I]

And so what's the relevance of the cold to the chip?

[H]

Our chips are superconducting. And when you get certain metals cold, in our case aluminum, they become superconducting and they have zero resistance. It is one of the coldest places in the universe, colder than you'd find in outer space or really anywhere else.

[I]

Take us 20 years into the future. What are we doing with Quantum computers in 2045?

[G]

So I think we will use it to help with many problems that humankind has. It will enable us to discover drugs more efficiently. It will help us make food production more efficient. It will help us with the energy economy, like to produce energy, to transport energy, to store energy, to build technologies that make life more pleasant for all of us.

[A]

That story from Faisal Islam with our editorial partners at the BBC in New York, I'm Sabri Benishour with the Marketplace morning report. From 8:00pm American Public Media.

[J]

Hey everyone. You already listened to Marketplace Podcasts, so you know that it's important to understand how economic forces shape our lives. And that feels especially important now as we're all trying to make sense of the latest headlines. I'm Marina Reyes, host of Marketplaces this is Uncomfortable, a show that explores how money bumps up against our relationships, our choices, and the parts of life we don't always say aloud. And starting January 15th, we are back every single week. New stories, new questions, and the kind of conversations that make you feel less alone in this quickly changing economy. We're tackling questions like should I turn my hobby into a money making side hustle? How do I deal with layoff anxiety? Or what do we owe our parents financially? Don't miss an episode. Subscribe to this is Uncomfortable from Marketplace. Wherever you get your podcasts.