Pandemic Pandemonium

Check out the accompanying pdf and chart collection. Executive Summary: The pandemic effectively accelerated the latest business cycle. Government interventions including lockdowns, rent moratoriums, stimulus payments, and ultra-easy monetary policy altered the behavior of economic actors including businesses, workers, consumers, landlords, tenants, home buyers, and home sellers. The result was a business cycle on warp speed. … Pandemic-altered consumer behavior escalated inflation, first for goods and then for services. … That disproves the theory that inflation is simply a monetary phenomenon, fully within the Fed’s power to control.