CORE CPI ROSE 0.3% IN AUGUST AND 2.4% OVER THE YEAR — ONE OUTLET CALLED IT A RATE HIKE AND ANOTHER CALLED IT THE COOLEST SINCE 2021 — THEY WERE READING THE SAME RELEASE

The August consumer price report came out on the morning of September 11. Headline prices rose 0.4% on the month and 3.4% over the year. Core, which leaves out food and energy, rose 0.3% on the month and 2.4% over the year. Those are the Bureau's own figures, month change taken from the seasonally adjusted index and year change from the unadjusted one, the way the Bureau publishes them.

Inside four hours two outlets had turned that one release into opposite stories. One led with the monthly core number and said it sets up a rate increase. The other led with the annual core number and called it the coolest since 2021. Neither invented anything. They picked different halves.

That is what a government number actually is. Not one fact, a family of them. The Bureau publishes four core readings off this single report depending on which index you take and how long a window you measure, and whoever chooses the member chooses the headline.

Here is the part that does not move. There is one bitcoin number and it is 21 million. It has no seasonally adjusted version, no year-over-year version, and no revision coming next month. Nobody gets to pick which half of it to report.