{"id":68165,"date":"2024-05-17T18:41:28","date_gmt":"2024-05-17T23:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=68165"},"modified":"2024-05-17T18:41:28","modified_gmt":"2024-05-17T23:41:28","slug":"mike-walden-is-it-greedflation-or-something-more-keeping-prices-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=68165","title":{"rendered":"Mike Walden: Is it \u2018greedflation\u2019 or something more keeping prices high?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mike Walden: Is it \u2018greedflation\u2019 or something more keeping prices high?<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
\"Mike<\/p>\n

Photo by Adam Nir on Unsplash<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Although the pace at which prices are rising has moderated,\u00a0prices are still going up<\/a>. In 2021, average consumer prices surged 7%; in 2022 they jumped 6.5%; in 2023 prices went up a more tolerable 3.4%, and the latest reading for 2024 shows consumer prices are up 3.5% from the same period in 2023. Cumulatively this puts prices up over 20% since 2021.<\/p>\n

As long as consumers\u2019 financial resources increase at the same or a higher rate than price inflation, then there\u2019s no loss of purchasing power. But most people know this hasn\u2019t happened. Indeed, from 2021 to now, the average consumer\u2019s purchasing power is off by 5%.<\/p>\n

I mention these statistics to show that inflation is still a problem, which is something most people know. The next question is,\u00a0why is inflation still a continuing issue?<\/a><\/p>\n

When inflation began its spurt in 2021 there was an easy-to-understand reason \u2013 consumers were trying to buy more than sellers had to offer.\u00a0 Consumers were flush with cash as a result of the COIVD-19 relief programs enacted in both 2020 and 2021. These programs culminated in $6.5 trillion being rapidly pushed into the economy.\u00a0 Initially there were few buying opportunities as large parts of the economy had not yet reopened.<\/p>\n

When consumers were able to buy, they had what economists call \u201cpent-up demand,\u201d meaning they wanted to buy a lot! Typically this wouldn\u2019t have been a problem, but there was another issue that had emerged \u2013 supply-chain problems. So, in short, consumers wanted to really buy, but many of the shelves were bare. In this situation, it was inevitable prices would rise substantially, which they did.<\/p>\n

But today, consumers have spent most of the COVID money, and the supply-chain has mostly been fixed. Yet inflation is running hotter than the 1.8% in 2019, before the pandemic….<\/p>\n

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

Mike Walden: Is it \u2018greedflation\u2019 or something more keeping prices high? Photo by Adam Nir on Unsplash Although the pace at which prices are rising has moderated,\u00a0prices are still going up. In 2021, average consumer prices surged 7%; in 2022 they jumped 6.5%; in 2023 prices went up a more tolerable 3.4%, and the latest […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[303,34583,431,34584,534,538,13351,3237,34582],"class_list":["post-68165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fed","tag-greedflation","tag-interest-rates","tag-mike-walden","tag-monetary-policy","tag-money-printing","tag-price-inflation","tag-supply-chains","tag-wraltechwire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68165","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=68165"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68166,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68165\/revisions\/68166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}