What are the key takeaways from this Marketplace episode?

Key insights include: **Inflation trajectory:** Consumer prices rose 2.4% annually in January 2024, down from 2.7% in December and 9% peak in 2022. Core inflation excluding food and energy reached 2.5%, the lowest since 2021, though the Fed's preferred gauge remains stuck at 3%, above the 2% target rate.; **Tariff impact timing:** Tariff-related price increases peaked in early 2024 and will decline through year-end as companies complete cost absorption. Appliances, furniture, and new cars show sharp January increases, but forecasts predict only 0.5 percentage points of tariff inflation versus earlier 1.0 percentage point predictions.; **Concierge medicine growth:** Primary care doctors charging annual fees of $2,000 or more nearly doubled between 2018 and 2023. Doctors reduce patient rosters from 3,800 to 600 patients, enabling hour-long appointments versus ten-minute visits, but this intensifies the existing primary care shortage in rural areas and for lower-income patients.

What did Katharine Rampell and Greg Ip discuss on Marketplace?

The EPA repeals its 2009 endangerment finding that classified greenhouse gases as public health threats, eliminating regulatory authority over emissions. The administration claims this saves $1.3 trillion in costs, but experts warn of hidden expenses from climate damage, regulatory uncertainty, and reduced vehicle efficiency that may offset any savings. Key topics include: **Inflation trajectory:** Consumer prices rose 2.4% annually in January 2024, down from 2.7% in December and 9% peak in 2022. Core inflation excluding food and energy reached 2.5%, the lowest since 2021, though the Fed's preferred gauge remains stuck at 3%, above the 2% target rate.; **Tariff impact timing:** Tariff-related price increases peaked in early 2024 and will decline through year-end as companies complete cost absorption. Appliances, furniture, and new cars show sharp January increases, but forecasts predict only 0.5 percentage points of tariff inflation versus earlier 1.0 percentage point predictions..

How long is this episode of Marketplace?

This episode is 25 minutes long. SignalCast provides an AI-generated summary so you can get the key insights in about 3 minutes.

Marketplace

Inside the "biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history"

February 13, 2026

25 min episode · 2 min read

Katharine Rampell,Greg Ip

Episode

25 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Productivity, Health & Wellness, Investing

AI-Generated Summary

Published Feb 14, 2026

Key Takeaways

✓Inflation trajectory: Consumer prices rose 2.4% annually in January 2024, down from 2.7% in December and 9% peak in 2022. Core inflation excluding food and energy reached 2.5%, the lowest since 2021, though the Fed's preferred gauge remains stuck at 3%, above the 2% target rate.
✓Tariff impact timing: Tariff-related price increases peaked in early 2024 and will decline through year-end as companies complete cost absorption. Appliances, furniture, and new cars show sharp January increases, but forecasts predict only 0.5 percentage points of tariff inflation versus earlier 1.0 percentage point predictions.
✓Concierge medicine growth: Primary care doctors charging annual fees of $2,000 or more nearly doubled between 2018 and 2023. Doctors reduce patient rosters from 3,800 to 600 patients, enabling hour-long appointments versus ten-minute visits, but this intensifies the existing primary care shortage in rural areas and for lower-income patients.
✓AI weather forecasting capability: Deep learning models trained on government weather data now outperform traditional supercomputer forecasts, particularly for tracking hurricanes and cold fronts. These models cost significantly less to run once trained and could extend reliable forecasting from the current seven to ten days out to potentially one month ahead.
✓Regulatory uncertainty costs: Removing emissions regulations creates investment hesitation as companies make ten to twenty year decisions based on expected future policy, not current rules. This regulatory whiplash delays cost-saving investments in efficient technology, even as new clean energy becomes cheaper than coal, potentially eliminating projected consumer savings from deregulation.

What It Covers

The EPA repeals its 2009 endangerment finding that classified greenhouse gases as public health threats, eliminating regulatory authority over emissions. The administration claims this saves $1.3 trillion in costs, but experts warn of hidden expenses from climate damage, regulatory uncertainty, and reduced vehicle efficiency that may offset any savings.

Key Questions Answered

•Inflation trajectory: Consumer prices rose 2.4% annually in January 2024, down from 2.7% in December and 9% peak in 2022. Core inflation excluding food and energy reached 2.5%, the lowest since 2021, though the Fed's preferred gauge remains stuck at 3%, above the 2% target rate.
•Tariff impact timing: Tariff-related price increases peaked in early 2024 and will decline through year-end as companies complete cost absorption. Appliances, furniture, and new cars show sharp January increases, but forecasts predict only 0.5 percentage points of tariff inflation versus earlier 1.0 percentage point predictions.
•Concierge medicine growth: Primary care doctors charging annual fees of $2,000 or more nearly doubled between 2018 and 2023. Doctors reduce patient rosters from 3,800 to 600 patients, enabling hour-long appointments versus ten-minute visits, but this intensifies the existing primary care shortage in rural areas and for lower-income patients.
•AI weather forecasting capability: Deep learning models trained on government weather data now outperform traditional supercomputer forecasts, particularly for tracking hurricanes and cold fronts. These models cost significantly less to run once trained and could extend reliable forecasting from the current seven to ten days out to potentially one month ahead.
•Regulatory uncertainty costs: Removing emissions regulations creates investment hesitation as companies make ten to twenty year decisions based on expected future policy, not current rules. This regulatory whiplash delays cost-saving investments in efficient technology, even as new clean energy becomes cheaper than coal, potentially eliminating projected consumer savings from deregulation.

Notable Moment

An environmental policy professor directly challenges EPA claims that repealing emissions regulations saves taxpayers money, arguing the calculation ignores costs from increased extreme weather events including fires, floods, and heat waves that reduce worker productivity, increase illness, and cause deaths beyond any transportation savings from cheaper vehicle manufacturing.

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Episode Transcript

This marketplace podcast is supported by Wealth Enhancement, who understand that dreams don't happen by chance. It takes a plan. They're ready to build your wealth blueprint for retirement, investing, taxes, and everything else your financial life brings. It reveals gaps and highlights opportunities you may have missed at no cost to you. Find out more at wealthenhancement.com/blueprint. This message is brought to you by the Capital One VentureX card. VentureX offers the premium benefits you expect, like a $300 annual Capital One travel credit for less than you expect. Elevate your earn with unlimited double miles on every purchase, bringing you one step closer to your next dream destination. Plus, enjoy access to over 1,000 airport lounges worldwide. The Capital One Venture X card, what's in your wallet? Terms apply. Lounge access is subject to change. See capital1.com for details. An encouraging inflation report to end the week, plus the rise of concierge medicine, and AI comes to your weather forecast. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. In Denver, I'm Amy Scott. And for Kai Risdall, it's Friday, February 13. Good to have you with us. It's been about five years now that we've been living with inflation higher than the Fed's target of 2% annually, but we're getting closer to that target. Today's delayed consumer price index report from the labor department shows prices rose just 2.4% on an annual basis in January, down from 2.7% the previous month and way down from the peak of more than 9% in 2022. But as usual, the devil is in the details. And here to dive in with us are Katharine Rampell at the Bulwark and MS Now and also Greg Ip at The Wall Street Journal. Hi, you two. Hey, Amy. Hello. Alright, Greg. Let's start with your takeaways from that inflation report. Good news? Well, yeah. I'd say that it is a good report. The inflation rate of 2.4%, certainly a lot lower as you're saying than it was a few years ago. And, economists like to take out the energy and food portions not because they don't actually think those are important, but because they're very volatile. And if you do that, you come with the come up with an inflation rate of only around 2.5%, which is the lowest for that number since 2021 just after the pandemic. But as you said, the devil is in the details. If you look below the surface, you deals you do still see some signs of tariff inflation in things like appliances and, and other imported goods. And also, this may come as a surprise to some people, that's actually several different ways to measure inflation. And the Federal Reserve has its own preferred inflation gauge. And when you actually see how today's report affects though that alternative gauge, it suggests inflation might actually be still stuck at around 3%, which is too high for the Fed, which prefers an inflation rate of 2%. Catherine, what about you? …

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