Of course inflation is back. Home prices are spiraling, fossil fuel prices need to go up, if we are to address climate change. Wages are trying to catch up also.

On the news I hear that inflation is happening. That's not surprising. Not necessarily a game stopper, but inflation is back.

New money has flowed into the economy as the Fed has propped up spending which did keep many folks out of poverty during the pandemic.

New money often ends up inflating asset prices and home values after it's done it's job helping people. This leads to a spiral of things like rising rents. Low interest rates seem to inflate the market.

Gasoline and other energy prices are going up, but if we are to solve global warming, fossil fuel prices need to go up. They still aren't higher than they were in the boom years of the Bush II administration, just before the 2008 crash.

Wages are going up also. In many jobs, such as restaurants, this can push up the price that customers pay.

Some folks say that businesses can pay higher wages by just absorbing the cost, but it doesn't look like most will do that. Maybe a few will; such as the recent news about Dick's Burgers, in Seattle.

In some cases, businesses could absorb costs, but things like liability insurance, regulations and just the capital cost of owning, or leasing, a building are factors.

Some businesses are on a thin margin and / or they are small businesses. In other cases, executive and stockholders could take huge pay cuts, but will they do that? I wouldn't hold my breath.

Taxing the executives and shareholder profits more could help, but it's unlikely to happen if the angry pendulum of politics starts to swing back toward the Republican Party.