We've literally just come off the biggest DEFLATIONARY shock of our lifetimes (the pandemic), of course you're going to see tailwinds the year after unprecidented stimulus and consumer demand.
I recommend people focus on the long term trends rather than looking at outliers to predict the future. You could very well argue wage inflation couteracts these effects, on top of supply chain shortages.
This inflation is real, and isn't just a COVID rebound. It's bad policies leasing to lack of business confidence leading to fear of the future.
If you are posting here, odds are you work in software. Seek out some friends who work in hardware and ask them what they are seeing.
It would have been.
For hardware: Demand goes up, supply goes down, prices go up. Inflation, but not related to monetary policy.
Do you think that free / easy money had anything to do with this?
Where? On what? Prices everywhere stayed flat or increased.
I agree it's an odd year, but it's fairly clear that the Jan 2020 to Jan 2023 inflation will be materially higher in the US than any other 3 year period since the 70s. I think most likely it will land about 40% increase over that period.
That would indeed be unprecedented, and highly highly unlikely. Remember housing isn't the only factor in CPI calculations.
We're currently seeing ~6% annualized this year. Target goal of ~2-3%.
Prices in popular or economically booming areas were increasing for many years before the pandemic, at a greater rate than whatever national government statistics were claiming.
Both short and long term trends are important. Short term trends help us understand current situation that is different from what was happening maybe a year ago. If you only look at long terms you are blind to a lot of important processes.
The fact is understanding the common underlying reason for the price increase is very valuable and that is why we measure short term inflation.
Would you prefer the government wait now and ignored the situation until later when it is going to be more difficult to deal with it? I thought most people usually argue the other way and claim governments are too slow to react.
Nothing about the pandemic was deflationary, money did not become more valuable at any time delta during the pandemic.