Worries about inflation will most likely not clear overnight. As of now, that seems to be the case. Still, one can hardly pontificate much regarding how inflation could spread and where it will become most acute.
For years, the shadow of inflation held a big step back from practically all open economies. The 2008-2012 financial crisis seemed to have completely dried it up. The worries then were about how as a result, investments were emerging too slowly and how economies could stagnate or almost, unless a dash of inflation (or perhaps more) came into the mix.
With Covid, the situation changed somewhat. The disruption of production cycles and of global transport channels resulted in scarcities that boosted prices. But that was a hiccup that would soon fade – so the claim continued to be made.
Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine followed by the Western powers’ sanctions against Russia changed the scenario radically. The scarcities and prices pressures that have resulted in the food and energy sectors will not dissipate fast. They will trigger price rises in other sectors.
The inflationary rises that have surfaced in recent times will quite likely develop in ways that are completely different from how price pressures used to arise in the past.
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AFTER THE BREAK
When I recently visited places where arrangements were being laid out for celebrations in connection with Good Friday and Easter, I had to admire the enthusiasm and commitment of the organizers. Tables set out for the Apostles’ Last Supper, small scale exhibitions of Good Friday procession statues, preparations for an Easter pageant – work on all such initiatives had been proceeding for weeks on end, not to say months.
Everything was like I remembered would be happening in previous years. Pre-Covid, that is. Though naturally the pace of how things were being done at this time needed to pick up – it was still at the running in phase.
I was struck though by some points made by organisers: they are still not so sure... indeed they sounded a bit concerned ... about whether matters will really revert to what they were like “before”. People’s habits and interests can alter over a hiatus of two years. That applies both for enthusiasts who work hard to make the shows run and among the public.
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THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR
Somehow I got to revisit a book published in Moscow in 1967 and purchased many moons ago, about the Soviet/Russian media during the Second World War. For Russia, this was the Great Patriotic War, during which the USSR lost about 14 percent of its population.
The book describes how newspapers operating from the military frontlines reported about what was going on. Unfailingly, one is impressed by how many of the reports cited related to the Ukraine (and Bielorussian) front. It becomes well apparent that in the blood soaked warfare by which the Nazi invasion was contained, Ukrainians and Russians stood shoulder to shoulder, united in their determination to repel the agressor.
How ironic all this sounds today, when Ukrainians and Russians are slaughtering each other with next to no mercy being shown. This fratricidal war should never have been launched. Whoever did launch it will carry a huge historical responsibility.