If you save up your miles or credit card points for vacations, you may be treating them a bit like savings. But unlike money in your savings account, a company can change the value of those points. Today, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg joins Marketplace’s David Brancaccio to make the case for greater transparency in airline and credit card rewards programs. Also: the San Francisco Fed President on the future of interest rates.
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What are airline points worth? Transportation Secretary Buttigieg wants to know.

In less than 10 minutes, we’ll get you up to speed on all the news you missed overnight. Throughout the morning, Marketplace’s David Brancaccio will bring you the latest business and economic stories you need to know to start your day. And before U.S. markets open, you’ll get a global markets update from the BBC World Service in London. 

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Earlier this week, we took a look at the economies of Gaza and the West Bank before and during the current conflict. On today’s show, we’ll examine how Israel’s economy was doing before Oct. 7. (To hear how Israel’s economy has been altered by war, check out this episode.) Plus, inflation is stuck at a rate higher than the Federal Reserve would like to see.

Israel and its pre-war economy

Starting next year, more people will be able to file their taxes directly and electronically with the IRS without a middleman. This past tax season, the IRS ran a small trial run in a few states and says it went well, so the agency’s making its free direct file program permanent. It’s expanding eligibility for the program too. Also: the Israeli economy and how it’s changed as a result of war.

IRS to make its free direct filing program permanent

From the BBC World Service: The U.S. needs to stop interfering in the affairs of Taiwan — that was the verdict of China’s defense minister, Admiral Dong Jun, who made the comments during a meeting with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at a security conference in Singapore. Then, parts of India are experiencing an extreme heat wave, and Mexico’s citizens go to the polls on Sunday in a historic election.

China warns U.S. to stop interfering with Taiwan

Thursday marks the end of the 90-day period the FAA gave Boeing to come up with a plan to improve its safety and quality-control practices, something prompted by a fuselage panel blowout on an Alaska Airlines flight in January. Boeing has already announced a number of changes since then. What more do we expect to learn today? Also on the program: the number of wholesale goods sitting on shelves a dramatic decline in foreclosures.

Today is a crucial deadline for Boeing

In the months since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, Palestine’s economy has been radically altered. Today, we hear about the conflict’s impact on the West Bank, Palestinian tax revenue and what recovery from such destruction and devastation in Gaza could potentially look like. Plus, the rise in artificial intelligence requires lots of data computing centers to power that AI. And all those data centers use lots of electricity.

What are airline points worth? Transportation Secretary Buttigieg wants to know.

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