The year-on-year rate of change in the CPI, excluding prices of food and energy-related goods such as petroleum products, was 0.7 percent in December, and improvement in prices is spreading across a wide range of items amid the improvement in the aggregate supply and demand balance, with the number of items for which prices have risen exceeding that for which prices have declined.
It would be tempting to discuss each of these policy areas, given their importance to the promotion of sound and efficient financial systems. But we would need a great deal longer than one day to do justice to such a broad range of complicated policy issues.