Profound Purchases

Compared to 1/1/19, inflation-adjusted US purchases of services has fully recovered, great news. The problem: purchases of goods remain up by almost 20%! Apparently, Covid-19 habits die hard. The US economy is not suffering from anything resembling stagflation. Rather, we are seeing very strong growth bumping up against supply constraints exacerbated by a profound worker shortage, the causes of which are myriad, leading to sharp price increases.