{"id":60189,"date":"2021-11-01T06:13:47","date_gmt":"2021-11-01T11:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=60189"},"modified":"2021-11-01T06:13:47","modified_gmt":"2021-11-01T11:13:47","slug":"the-feds-inflation-is-behind-the-supply-chain-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=60189","title":{"rendered":"The Fed’s Inflation Is behind the Supply Chain Mess"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Fed’s Inflation Is behind the Supply Chain Mess<\/a><\/h3>\n

\"fed\"<\/h2>\n
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It seems supporters of the Biden administration finally settled on a narrative they like for explaining away supply chain shortages.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s\u00a0the administration\u2019s talking point<\/a>: the US economy is rolling along so well that Americans are demanding huge amounts of goods. That\u2019s overwhelming the supply chain and causing the backups roiling America\u2019s ports and logistic infrastructure.<\/p>\n

For example, transportation secretary Buttigieg this month declared “Demand is up \u2026 because income is up, because the president has successfully guided this economy out of the teeth of a terrifying recession.”<\/p>\n

Similarly, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters supply chain problems are occurring because \u201cpeople have more money \u2026 their wages are up \u2026 we\u2019ve seen an economic recovery that is underway.\u201d<\/p>\n

This position has been mocked by a number of conservative politicians\u2014including Senator Ted Cruz<\/a>\u2014and commentators, who find this to be an absurd assumption. Indeed, Cruz and other critics could point to a variety of factors\u00a0ranging from the weight of government regulations to the problem of covid lockdowns limiting the productivity of supply-chain workers.<\/p>\n

Yet\u00a0the administrator\u2019s defenders are\u00a0right about consumer demand and spending\u2014even if for the wrong reasons. As Mihai Macovei showed earlier this month, the global volume of trade and\u00a0shipping volume<\/a>\u00a0in 2021 have actually exceeded prepandemic numbers. For example,\u00a0in the port of Los Angeles<\/a>, \u201cloaded imports\u201d and \u201ctotal imports\u201d for the 2020\u201321 fiscal year (ending June 30, 2021) were both up when compared to the same period of the 2018\u201319 fiscal year.<\/p>\n

In other words, it\u2019s not as if little is moving through these ports. In fact, more is moving through them than ever before. That suggests demand is indeed higher.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0why<\/em>\u00a0is it higher? It some ways, it’s true that, as Psaki says, “people have more money.” That, however, is\u00a0where the veracity and usefulness of Biden\u2019s defenders end in explaining the problem.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Fed’s Inflation Is behind the Supply Chain Mess It seems supporters of the Biden administration finally settled on a narrative they like for explaining away supply chain shortages. Here\u2019s\u00a0the administration\u2019s talking point: the US economy is rolling along so well that Americans are demanding huge amounts of goods. That\u2019s overwhelming the supply chain and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[63,124,303,32057,13351,14776,31091,3237,25781,3650],"class_list":["post-60189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-banks","tag-central-banks","tag-fed","tag-money-printing-monetary-policy","tag-price-inflation","tag-ryan-mcmaken","tag-supply-chain-disruptions","tag-supply-chains","tag-the-mises-institute","tag-us-federal-reserve"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60190,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60189\/revisions\/60190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}