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Does anyone think that the current massively inflated prices will ever fall? I'm still so pissed off about it, a year later. Due to the fact that much of my income is based on the company's stock, which massively fell the same time inflation went nuts, I make less money now than I did a few years ago, despite having been promoted and working harder than ever. Couple that with inflation making my money worth less, and it's a wonder I can afford any non-essential spending at all. Every single good that I buy has increased in price by very noticable amounts. Generally, many people may not have the same problem as me, where their income is based on stock, but still, most people's cost of living has greatly increased and their income has stayed the same. Prices have been so out of control lately.
Is it just the Russia-Ukraine war that's keeping prices so high, or is it more than that, like aftershock from the pandemic, lockdowns, and COVID relief spending upending the economy? What's the best to hope for? If the war ends, is all we have to look forward to a reduction in inflation, meaning that prices will stop going up? Or is deflation a possibility, to bring prices back down to previous levels? I know close to nothing about econ, but I always hear deflation talked about as if it's this terrible thing. I don't really know why, I guess just because it destabilizes the market, and makes outstanding debts larger. To me right now, my dollar being worth more sounds great. Is deflation immediately following inflation a bad thing if it just brings prices back to previous levels?
No, over many decades now the target of central banks is to keep low inflation nominally at but bellow 2% a year, it is in their explicit target. The reason has to do with problems for companies with deflation as they cannot cope with wages, the famous nominal wage rigidity graph. People hate wage cuts plus there are real costs associated with that such as menu costs (these are there even with high inflation). It is easier for economy to have low inflation so that when your wage does not adjust it will fall a little bit in real terms.
Now the inflation can be caused by two main effects: supply side and demand side. For extreme supply side issues imagine situation in Warsaw Ghetto during WW2 where people did not have access to basic things like bread, and they were forced to buy supplies from corrupt German soldiers for stashed jewelry and so forth. Demand side means just printing a lot of money like in Zimbabwe. In reality these two phenomenons are often linked - for instance in Zimbabwe the nationalization of agricultural land led to mass crop failures which increased the price of food, which the inept government decided to solve by printing more money in death spiral.
Now I am no expert, but the current issues are to large extend driven by "supply" issues. COVID had shown that relying on certain global supply chains specifically in China are not reliable so many companies are in the middle of restructuring this. There was also massive change in consumer behavior, we saw more online purchases but there is also huge shift toward remote work. This is huge shift in what is demanded and what is not. Ruso-Ukrainian war had real impact on food market, this then has more second degree effects - in some poor countries people use their budget now almost exclusively on food, so there is nothing more to spare on other goods and services. We see uneven effect with food un USA increasing 10% and 11% in 2021 and 2022 which is higher than other goods.
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