Inflation will continue as the number one issue facing the country until it subsides, because it offends American myth. We’ve been told since time immemorial that capitalism has perfectly calibrated the economy so that anyone can get anything, anytime, however they want it. And that the wonders of globalization and other efficiencies will grind down the cost of this massive undertaking to a nib, continuously improving U.S. living standards. As long as you ignore the deprivation and poverty that makes this narrative presumably possible (and actually implausible), you can celebrate the greatest of all possible worlds.

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What led to our current predicament of rising prices, missing goods, and rationing was obvious if you knew where to look. Weeks before COVID lockdowns in the U.S., the American Economic Liberties Project’s Matt Stoller wrote the most perceptive and also the simplest prediction we’ve seen over the past several years. It boils down to this: Our system of production, logistics, and regulatory oversight was not engineered to handle any stress.