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Comment by PragmaticPulp | Hacker News Reader

The food inflation number was isolated in the article to be around 3%.

Much of that increase can be traced back to increased shipping costs during COVID lockdown.

Monetary policy isn’t the only or even the primary driver of inflation. In this case, the inflation comes from increases demand on a portion of the food supply chain (shipping services).

The alarmism in the comment section largely comes from people misreading the headline. The article is about soaring food costs in developing nations, but the comment section is treating the headline as if it’s about US food prices.

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The article also discussed the fact that US prices are temporarily buffered by the supply chain but that big providers like GM are discussing price increases do to sustained cost increases. This is alongside existing practices like shrinkflation that make it harder for a CPI to accurately benchmark costs. It makes sense that articles and readers are looking for leading indicators.

> Monetary policy isn’t the only or even the primary driver of inflation.

After two degrees in economics, my perception is that monetary policy is definitely considered a primary driver of inflation, probably THE primary driver. But this is probably irrelevant - see below.

> In this case, the inflation comes from increases demand on a portion of the food supply chain (shipping services).

Yes, for example: "in North America... a shortage of both shipping containers and truck drivers".

> The alarmism in the comment section largely comes from people misreading the headline.

To me, it feels alarmist for Bloomberg to consistently say "inflation" instead of "price increases" throughout the article. A temporary problem with supply/demand is not the same as inflation. Food prices will almost certainly fall back to their normal trajectory within a year or two, once supply/demand normalizes, whereas if there was truly inflation that would almost certainly NOT occur.

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