This Is No Knockout Win for Team Transitory

You never really learn how something works until it goes wrong. This is true of many electronic devices, in my experience, and we are all now learning that it’s also true of inflation. Price rises have been under control in the Western world for decades. Now, we have a problem. If the numbers are to be trusted, inflation has taken off in a way that hasn’t been seen in a generation.

But we also know that Covid-19 administered an economic shock of a kind that nobody had seen before, and it was natural that it would have an effect on prices. The forces that pushed down prices are still with us, and many have a vested interest in their continuing to do so. And so, we are all learning to explore and sometimes manipulate inflation statistics in a way we haven’t previously done.