Mary Daly:
Not to my mind.
The inflation spikes that we’re seeing, they really can be traced back to some key sectors that are getting their feet back under them trying to reopen. So, airline prices, travel and leisure prices in general are really contributing to the spikes that we see an inflation, used car prices, which are related not to just reopening, and people wanting cars, but the fact that semiconductor supply is constrained, because it was pushed down by COVID and hasn’t fully come back up.
So there’s huge demand surging and supplies not keeping up. And then some of the prices are just catching up. Like, airline prices were very low in the depths of the pandemic. They return to normal, and that causes a big spike in inflation.
So, if you put all this together all those details I just described, it really foreshadows and forecasts a temporary spike in inflation that lasts longer than we would have wanted, for sure. Temporary doesn’t mean just a few days or a few months. It could last all the way into next year. But it won’t stay there forever.
And it’s just a reflection of an economy that’s reopening and the supply can’t keep up with that reopening demand. But it will. And I think that’s the reassuring thing I would like your listeners to hear, is that supply does respond, and supply will come back online.
You saw that in the lumber prices. They went up, they peaked, and then they came back down.
