Inflation will not fall back to the 2% level that the US Federal Reserve wants, and that we had pre-Covid. Two underlying structural changes that have nothing to do with today's shortage-based inflation will keep US inflation at about 4% in the future:
1. The long-overdue rise in the cost of labour; and,
2. A permanent doubling of the size of the US fiscal deficit as a percentage of GDP.
But the news is not all bad. The IT-based technology revolution is continuing, and as we have argued for at least 10 years, this revolution has been the most important reason why inflation has been dropping for decades – a story completely ignored by the Fed in the 1980-2020 period. I expect the technology story to continue to be disinflationary. Just consider the disinflationary impact of Zooming. - Watch Dr Woody Brock on Portfolio Construction Forum