by John Rubino
Dollar Collapse
It’s been hard, lately, to untangle the many causes of inflation’s sudden surge. How much is due to the pandemic lockdown distorting year-over-year comparisons? How much to crippled supply chains forcing manufacturers to pay up for needed components? And how much to good old-fashioned excessive money printing?
Whatever the cause, headline inflation numbers have been brutal, with the CPI rising at rates that would normally call for a fast, hard tightening. See Key inflation indicator posts biggest year-over-year gain in nearly three decades.
But now commodities are giving back some of their recent gains. Lumber, for instance, was the gaudiest inflation story of the past year, adding tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of a new home. But its price is now tanking, as homebuilders delay projects and lumber yards loosen up on their suspiciously tight inventories: