First it was baby formula, now there's a tampon shortage. Tampon prices are up 10% due to the rising price of oil affecting the cost of plastic and higher cotton prices due to mask manufacturing and the war in Ukraine. A whole lot of fertilizer comes out of Ukraine and Russia. So does neon, which is used to make semiconductor chips. The chip shortage is shutting down car plants.
American’s capacity for denial is truly a thing to behold. For at least 27 months, it should have been obvious that we were headed for a grave crisis. Not only that: the crisis was already here in March 2020.
The most dangerous words in monetary policy and economics are “this time is different.” The big mistake of politicians in Argentina is to believe that inflation is multicausal and that everything is solved with increasing doses of interventionism.
As a stagflationary environment transitions into what could soon be a global depression, global central banks are frantically raising interest rates to contain inflation. But amidst all this, Saudi Arabia still has plans to construct the largest buildings ever.
