Marketplace - Expect and you shall recieve

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

Consumer surveys show us Americans think inflation will climb in the coming years. That belief could be one reason inflation actually does climb. See, when consumers think inflation will accelerate, it affects their spending decisions. And those choices aren’t without consequence. Also in this episode: Anthropic loosens its safety pledge to compete with other AI firms, video game sales could break records in 2026, and outgoing Atlanta Fed president Raphael Bostic discusses leadership at the central bank.Every story has an economic angle. Want some in your inbox? Subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter.Marketplace is more than a radio show. Check out our original reporting and financial literacy content at marketplace.org — and consider making an investment in our future.

Are you ready for a life-changing opportunity? BC Cancer is actively hiring for all health care roles across all its regional centers in beautiful British Columbia. Join a dedicated team committed to ending cancer for good and experience the lifestyle you've always dreamed of in stunning BC. We're curing cancer here. Are you in? Apply now at jobs.bcancor.bcancor.bc.c.c.c.c.a. On the program today, sticky inflation.

We'll do some video gaming, and we'll talk about living on a cruise ship. From American public media, this is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Risdahl. It is Wednesday. Today, this one is the 25th of February. Good as always to have you along, everybody. We're going to begin today with a one-two punch of sorts. Coming out of our interview with Raphael Bostic, the soon-to-be former president of the Federal Reserve

Bank of Atlanta. In the parts of that interview that we played yesterday, and we're going to play some more in a minute, by the way. But we talked a bit he and I did about the central bank's credibility, how and why people might start doubting the Fed's ability to do its job. In this instance, specifically being able to get inflation back to where the central bank wants it to be, 2%, as you know, after not having been able to do it for years now, as you also know. He worries about that, Bostick said. So, Marketplace is a brief. Benichore gets us going with this. Have we been away from ideal inflation for so very long now that we're stuck here? You know, in Star Wars, the Empire Strikes Back, Luke is trying to raise a

spaceship out of a swamp? I can't. It's too big. And then Yoda uses the force and actually does it. I don't believe it. That is why you fail. This is a common trope in movies. The idea that believing in something or not believing in something makes that something happen or not happen. Inflation is like that. You can have a self-fulfilling prophecy. Uri Gerodonacchenko is a professor of economics at UC Berkeley. If you want to buy a car and you think inflation is going to be high in the future, that you should be willing to buy this car now rather than later. And if everybody does that, then the price of that car goes up.

I expect prices to be high and end up with higher prices. Right now, consumers expect high inflation, according to the Michigan survey of consumers they think on average, inflation will be six and a half percent in a year and 7.2 percent in five to ten years. This is really, really high. It is relatively easy to create this self-fulfilling prophecy. The only thing holding consumers back from getting out there and buying stuff and kicking off a vicious circle is uncertainty about the economy, Grodenchenko says.

But there is a wrinkle in all of this, which is that we consumers, turns out, are usually very bad. at predicting inflation. Consumer expectations haven't been anchored at the 2% inflation target for like the last four and a half decades. Michael Weber is a professor of finance at Purdue University. He says the spark for a self-fulfilling inflation prophecy isn't the number inside consumers' brains?

It's whether that number is changing inside their brains. And right now, it is. Inflation expectations keep coming down. So we might not know where we are, but we have a better sense of, where we're headed. And if you look at it that way, we should be headed for lower inflation. But a vicious inflation circle that can throw all of that in the air is only ever a few painful grocery bills away. In New York, I'm Sabri Beneshaw for Marketplace. Do or do not, there is no try. Wall Street seems not to be worried about inflation or

the State of the Union or anything else except AI. Honestly, we will have the details when we do the numbers. All right, here we go. One more. chunk of my interview yesterday with Raphael Bostic, who until Saturday is the president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Talk for a second, actually, about the less heralded part of this job. You get all the headlines for monetary policy, but you're a CEO, too. This is radio so nobody can see it. You're not laughing, not crying, but somewhere in between. Tell me about, you know, this is a big institution. And with all possible respect, what do you know about being a CEO, man?

Well, I knew a lot. You know? No, so I had never been a CEO before. You're an academic, right? You're a policymaker? Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's interesting. I, my HUD years were actually quite formative.

I feel like there are two types of management. One is where you manage, where you can see every worker, you can know where every person is at every moment. And then there's another kind of, where you can't do that. And, you know, HUD is 150, 150, 160 people scattered all over the country. I couldn't do that.

And what I found there was if I really tried to have every staff person believe that they could be great, and that they knew that someone had their back, that they wound up doing amazing things. And so I came here trying to do that as well. And the things that Atlanta Fed is now known for, are things that were not my ideas. There are things that came up from the rank and file who thought that there was something that could make us more impactful

or make us more effective or efficient. And, you know, I tried to give space for that. You did a thing with Dennis Lockhart a couple of weeks ago, your predecessor. And you said, sorry, let me just pull up the thing that you said. you are basically you stand on the shoulders of those who came before you. You are set up by the people ahead of you, is what you said. As you think about the next person to get this job, whoever that may be, how are you setting them up?

You know, that's an interesting way to ask that question. To me, I feel like I've set them up to be present in communities. much more easily, there's an expectation that and a comfort with us being around them, which will allow them to, that person to build those connections quicker and have a better sense of what our district is. I've set them up to work with the staff, and that person will have many options to choose from in terms of what we invest in moving forward. And I think I've set them up to where folks like you will want to,

to talk to them and that we will continue to have our knowledge be out in the world in a regular basis. I'm pleased to inform you that's the end of the personal part of this interview, so I know you don't like talking about yourself and what you're doing. Yeah, I saw some clip of you not too long ago saying you hate giving speeches, which I totally understand. Let me get you back to the moment we're in with the central bank and this economy. And instead of asking you about Kevin Warsh, the man that President Trump has nominated to take over from Chair Powell in May,

I want to note your answers to that question, which have basically been along the lines of the Fed's going to keep going, the Fed has credibility and it has the confidence of the American people. And I guess I wonder why you believe that, given the attacks that the president has made on the Central Bank and Chair Powell personally, but also, you know, economy's a little shaky. You guys are in charge of the economy. You've missed your inflation target for like years now. Why do you still believe in the Fed and what it can do? All right, so you asked a question differently at the end than at the beginning.

Yeah, I know, I did. I try not to do that. Sorry. No, no. That's my bad. No, it's fine. I like the second question better. The second one's easier, so I'll answer that one.

Interviewing 101 right here. So one of the things that is, it makes me laugh when I think about it, but when someone knows who I am, like not on stage or something like that, they almost always come up and they almost always say, thank you for what you're doing, just keep up the hard work. It's not complaining you've made my eggs be too expensive or, you know, I can't buy jeans because those are not the responses. I think those experiences have made it easier for me to keep doing it, right?

Because if I really felt that, you know, the broad populace had lost faith in us, then that would be a much harder job to do. I don't think we're that way to date, but there's always a risk. And so we have to remain transparent, not to your first question. I'll just go there.

I appreciate your work on. I'll just go there. Look, I've been working with these folks for a long time. There's not a lot of ego in those rooms. There have been previous feds, there have been lots of personalities and all that kind of stuff. Now, we have personalities, but it's not self-aggrandizement or anything like that,

and that, I think, is likely to sustain. Now, there's pressure. This is the economist on the one hand, on the other hand, thing. I'm just saying. No, no, no, no, because you're talking. talked about the attacks, and I've said many times, you should not be a central banker if you don't like to get yelled at. But we get yelled at.

Yeah, but should you be yelled at? I mean, honestly, right? People are going to do what they're going to do, right? So just expect to get yelled at any time, at any moment, and then just move on. Like, to me, that's kind of how I tried to approach it. And, you know, that would be my counsel and advice to anyone who's thinking about doing this in the future. Every interview you do, there's a question you wish you'd asked or a follow-up you wish you had pressed.

Here is mine from this one. I intentionally stayed away from the politics and the politicization and the independence of the central bank in this second Trump term. Because I figured Dr. Bostic would have said what Fed officials always say, and I mean always, that they just don't think about it. Well, shows me. He released his last quarterly message as bank president today. did in which he wrote this. The legal and rhetorical battles raging around the central bank right now have caused people across a wide cross-section of our population to begin to doubt the Fed's independence.

This is a major concern. End of quote. And note to self. Dr. Bostic has said only that he is going to take some time off after he leaves the Atlanta Fed. No specifics on that. But maybe a cruise somewhere? Don't know whether that's his vibe, honestly, but for some, it is a whole lifestyle.

Here's today's installment of our series Adventures in Housing. My name is Brian James, and I live on a cruise ship. That's what I've been doing for the better part of the last eight or nine years. Everybody that does music, like, wants to be a star, you know, and you think to be a star, you've got to go down this path of writing and recording and releasing, and I found out that you can be totally fulfilled performing, but doing it on a ship. They sit down at your bar and it's just you and a microphone and as long as you're playing on what they want to hear, shoot, they'll stick around all week long.

They'll be pumped to go see you every single night. When I first started, I think I was making $2,500 a month. And the fact is that can go pretty far because you are living on a cruise ship because you don't have expenses. So you don't have to pay for your food. You don't have to pay for your lodging. Your insurance is covered. That's just fun money if you want it to be. And for the first couple years on ships, it was purely fun money.

You sign up for six months at a time, eight months at a time, ten months at a time. Certain performers do a full year. Everybody is living in these close quarters and you're all below deck and you all eat breakfast at the same place and lunch at the same place and after work you all go to the same bar. It's just inevitable that relationships blossom. I met the loveliest girl. I was doing music. She was dancing. But because an entertainer's role is so specific, they hire one of my position on the ship.

And they hire three of her position on the ship. and they hire three of her position on the ship. So we had to make a decision really recently where she got put on a ship and it wasn't a ship that I got hired on. So I had to basically quit. I had to quit my job and instead live on ships full time but as a guest.

So I've been a paying guest for the last eight months or so. I get put on a little standby list by the cruise company because she works for the cruise line she gets benefits kind of like the airlines do benefits. So I have been maxing out her allotment of times that I can come on the ship. And yeah, I'm very, very fortunate that there is a massive, massive group of people on this planet that are constantly keeping up with what's happening on cruises. And so I literally just post videos every couple days of what we are doing on the ship,

whether it's eating at the buffet or it's going to Jaden shows. Maybe it's walking around at port and YouTube pays us. Home is ships. And I know that's not for everybody. You know, I have two, like, little nephews, and I've missed a lot of their birthdays. It sucks. But I still do think, like, the overall lifestyle of living on a ship is,

it's been too good not to do. Brian James Henderson, Living on a cruise ship somewhere in the Caribbean for now. You can tell us about your adventure and housing by sea land or air at marketplace.org. Coming up. Everyone thinks that GTA6 is going to be one of the hugest moments in any beginning history when it comes out. Everyone? Really?

First, though, let's do the numbers. Dow Industrials up 307 points today, 610%. 49,482. The NASDAQ added 288 points. 1 and a quarter percent. 23,152. The S&P 500 gained 56 points, 8 tenths of 1 percent is what that works out to. 69 and 46.

The Mediterranean fast casual chain, Kama, set a record with more than a billion dollars in sales. That is a whole lot of grain bowls, not with Fed. I'll tell you that. CEO told CNBC that the restaurant provides, and this is a quote, a bit of a bridge. Across the K-shaped economy, she said the best performing locations are in markets with lower median income. That's interesting. Think about that. Kava Group.

26.4% to date competitor, Chipotle, added 2.8%. The salad-driven sweet greens climbed 8 and 3.3% on the day. Bonds down, yield on the tenure. Tinoff, this rose 4.05%. You're listening to Marketplace. Are you ready for a life-changing opportunity? B.C. Cancer is actively hiring for all health care roles across all its regional centers in beautiful British Columbia. Join a dedicated team committed to ending cancer for good. and experience the lifestyle you've always dreamed of in stunning BC. We're curing cancer here. Are you in? Apply now at jobs.bcancer.bcancor.bc.c.c.c.c.c.c. This is Marketplace. I'm Kai Risdahl. You remember back in the day when the internet was the new, new thing, that Google had a slogan, don't be evil, they promised. Time flies, I guess, and corporate priorities change.

but artificial intelligence has brought technology safeguards racing back to the four. This is a tad bit inside baseball, but bear with me. The AI firm Anthropic is in a fight with the Pentagon over its safety guidelines. The Pentagon wants them relaxed, and until today, Anthropic did not. This morning, though, the company said it will, in fact, relax its rules around when to deploy new and more advanced versions of its AI because this is what the company says, it risks being left behind by its own. its competitors. Marketplace's Novosafo is on the AI and the Future of Humanity Desk for us today. Way back when, in the AI dark ages of, oh, 2021, some Open AI execs left to form what they called a safer

alternative, Anthropic. Owen Daniels is with Georgetown University Center for Security and emerging technology. Anthropic has long been one of the frontier labs that's been most acutely focused on ensuring that its systems and applications are used in kind of a safe, responsible, and ethical way. To avoid things like AI that lies to achieve a goal or that builds bio-weapons on command, core to Anthropics' safety effort had been a pledge called the responsible scaling policy, says Sarah Myers-West, of the AI Now Institute. Which essentially says if they believe that the capabilities of these tools outstrip their ability

to control them and ensure that they're safe, they would stop building them. Anthropic says it was trying to stave off a race to a bottom with that policy. But it admits it failed to persuade other companies to take its stricter safety approach. The change it announced yesterday means they may keep building more advanced models, even if they're riskier. Brent Thill, a tech industry analyst at Jeffries, says AI companies are getting more ambitious. I think there's incredible pressure from OpenAI, from Microsoft, from many of the top technology companies as AI is going from a consumer-based technology to now inside the enterprise,

the race is on, right? You need more advanced AI to run financial systems versus finding the best latte. And as companies spent hundreds of billions of dollars to build those tools, Georgetown's Owen Daniels says they need to start making money, too. There is a tension that's difficult for these companies to navigate in deploying the latest versions of models in ways that are economically useful and can be beneficial to their bottom lines. While balancing that with the risks AI may pose, an anthropic spokesperson said they're now committing to more transparency to publish detailed reports about the risks and capabilities

of its AI. I'm Nova Salfour for Marketplace. Maybe you've heard this data point before I have, but every time I run across it, I do a double-take. Video games are a bigger industry by annual revenue. than movies and music combined, and it's not even close. And last year was the industry's second best year on record, so says the Entertainment Software Association, among others.

We only spent more on games when we were locked down with little else to do but play Fortnite. And it's not a fluke either. 2026 could turn out to be the best year ever. Marketplaces Kelly Wells explains what's going on. Video games used to be a real boom or bust industry, a lot like Hollywood, but instead of everyone, rushing to go see Wicked, we'd all rush to buy the newest PlayStation or Nintendo gaming system and wait for months or years for the next installment of Zelda or Star Wars or Madden.

Those booms still happen. The market and consumption definitely reacts to big marquee releases, whether those are new machines or really big pieces of IP. Dmitri Williams is a communications professor at USC. He says there was a boom when the Nintendo Switch 2 came out last June, for example. What's different is there don't seem to be busts anymore. Pretty much everybody who wants to play can now because of the proliferation of smartphones all over the world and the drop in costs for bandwidth and access. And most people do want to play.

This is not one demographic. Young kids don't spend enough to spend $60.7 billion by themselves. Aubrey Quinn with the Trade Group, the Entertainment Software Association, says one in three people over eight. 80 years old, and most baby boomers play video games every week. I feel like every time I sit on a plane next to a woman, 50-year-older, she has got her iPad out or her phone out, and she is doing some sort of puzzle matching something game. The 8-year-old Roblox Warriors and the 80-year-old candy crushers are primarily spending on what's called the free-to-play games. These are the ones where you can grind for hours without paying

a cent, but you get interrupted every five minutes with an ad. And you know, If you just spent $4.99 a month, you could get rid of the ads and unlock this special currency that would make building your virtual garden go way faster. If you've ever done that, you have added to the $61 billion gaming industry. The other growing model here is gaming subscriptions. Just like you pay for Spotify or Netflix, you might buy a season pass that unlocks cool costumes and catchphrases for your character. We see subscription services taking off in terms of adoption across all forms of entertainment. So I don't think it's surprising that we're seeing similar models resonate with consumers in gaming. Meanwhile, the gaming industry itself is resonating with other forms of entertainment.

We've had movies on Super Mario and Minecraft. And gaming gets a lot of free advertising on social media. These games are incredibly content creator-friendly. They're clip generators. They create clips that people can post on TikTok or YouTube, whatever it might be, and draw more viewers to your channel. Sam Ani with the Digital Analytics Group Sensor Tower says all of that has been driving growth in the industry. 2025 also got a good old-fashioned boost from the new Nintendo console, and this year is set to get a boost too. Grand Theft Auto 6 is something that we've been waiting for over a decade.

Everyone thinks that GTA 6 is going to be one of the hugest moments in maybe gaming history when it comes out later this year, fingers crossed. Grand Theft Auto has a little bit of everything that makes games profitable. pay a lot of money for it. You can play online and pay money for cool bells and whistles. There will be clips on social media. Plus, it'll generate the same everybody's doing it fervor as dressing in pink and going to see the Barbie movie. Here's USC's Dimitri Williams again. The one big tent pole sometimes is something that people will rally around. The way that you'd say, well, nobody watches the same thing anymore except for the Academy Awards and the Super Bowl. Sometimes that's the equivalent in games. Except imagine if the Super Bowl only came around every 13 years.

analysts say Grand Theft Auto 6 could help make 2026 the industry's biggest year yet. I'm Kaylee Wells for Marketplace. This final note on the way out today, a financial exclamation point on Nova's story about artificial intelligence. InVIDIA reported earnings after the bell today. The first among equals AI chip design company for its fiscal first quarter had 79 billion American dollars in revenue. $79 billion in 12 short weeks. You take your pick, bubble or structural change. Could be both, too, by the way.

Our media production team includes Brian Allison, John Foki, Montana Johnson, Drew Jostet, Gary O'Keefe, and Charlton Thorpe. I'm Kai Rizdahl. We will. See you tomorrow, everybody. This is APM. What if the most romantic thing you could do is plan for the worst-case scenario?

I think there's nothing more romantic than actually knowing and being prepared. for the future. Why would you want to have a messy divorce? That's unromantic. I'm Rima Grace, and this week on This Is Uncomfortable, we're talking pre-ups, the myths that make them feel taboo, what they actually protect, and the bigger questions they bring up about love and power. Listen to This Is Uncomfortable wherever you get your podcasts.