Oh man, I hear CPI mentioned constantly on finance news and honestly, it used to confuse me too. So CPI stands for Consumer Price Index and it's basically a way the government figures out how prices are changing for a bunch of stuff people usually buy, like food, gas, rent, clothes, all that. I remember my econ teacher saying it's like checking the price tags at the store every month, just officially.

People freak out about CPI because it's one of the main ways we know if inflation is getting out of hand. If the CPI spikes, it usually means stuff is getting more expensive for everyone, and that hits people's wallets. Businesses watch it because rising prices can mess with profits and make planning harder. Also, central banks like the Federal Reserve use CPI, so if it goes up a lot, they might raise interest rates and that can seriously shake up the stock market.

Personally, I started noticing how much junk food prices went up when inflation hit and now CPI reports actually make sense to me. It really does show how much more expensive life gets. So yeah, people talk about CPI all the time because it actually affects almost everything in the economy.