Commentary
Stagflation is the combination of slow or falling economic output plus high inflation. For nearly two years, we’ve been stuck in this pattern and it still feels confusing. Prices for many items like cars and homes have whipsawed around in strange ways, up one month and down the next only to repeat the pattern.
As the inflation started, many people believed the official line that this was “transitory,” a word which people heard as “temporary.” If you think about it, the word transitory is meaningless as a predictive tool. It means moving from one thing to another thing without saying what the thing is. It turns out that transitory meant a transition from 2019 prices to a permanently and dramatically weaker dollar….