Well, Friday the thirteenth falls on a Thursday this month, and the Right Wingnuts in the crowd are bloviating on 'Inflation is Here!!! We must punish the lower classes!!'. No, it isn't; at least in the excess moolah version, which is the only version that the Right Wingnuts admit to. Or, in other words, whenever there's a hint of price appreciation (outside of Mr. Market's prices, of course), they yell and scream that Joe Sixpack has too much moolah and we 'have to, just have to, even if it hurts the Little People!! rein in wages'. It's a sacrifice the Little People are very willing to pay. They told us so. Just like geezers said they'd be delighted to risk dying in order to keep the Engine of Commerce humming along a year ago; bah humbug on masks and distancing and store-front closings. We heard them. Yes, we did.
Baloney, of course. The edging up of producer prices is driven by output shortages, accumulated during the Pandemic Recession when producers, in their own defense, reduced production. Only so much inventory build can be justified, especially when the end of the Pandemic Recession isn't penciled in the calendar with a Date Certain. While Covid-19 raced through the population in weeks, rebuilding the economy will take a tad longer.
Once producers are convinced that the Pandemic Recession has run its course, output will increase to meet demand. Don't forget that we're still in the neighborhood of being down 8 million jobs vis-a-vis pre-Pandemic Recession. To assert that there's some slack in the Engine of Commerce is a bit of an understatement. The evil bit: all those people facing businesses, restaurants and retail and the like, may decide that they can get along just fine, and make more profit, with the skeleton staffing they've adapted to over the last year. Mark my words. They ain't all that many Joe Sixpacks flush with cash, running out to scarf up doodads. There just isn't.
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