Guide to the permanent pandemic economy

Inflation uncertainty: A customer at a supermarket in Chicago, Illinois. Between demographic changes and weaker trade relationships, inflation may be naturally higher no matter what central banks try to do. — AFP

WE may be learning to live with Covid but as the latest inflation report shows, it’s still a pandemic economy.

Two-and-a-half years after the first lockdowns, the economy remains weird: It can take more than a year to a get a dishwasher, many months to get a passport, businesses are short-staffed, stores routinely run out of basic staples like pain reliever and, of course, there is high inflation.