Economics is a game played in the rearview mirror. Anyone who tells you they know exactly what's going to happen in the broader economy writ large is a person you should distance yourself from. We are substantially better at understanding what happened than what is going to happen. Or even what is actually happening in real time for that matter. I come at this from a historian's perspective, meaning I have a history degree, but I took a decent number of economics courses. I am NOT an economist, but I can understand what they tell me. There is a school of thought that holds that the prices of goods and services has been too low over the past couple of decades and that some of what is being ascribed to inflation is actually a market correction of increased prices and that these increased prices for certain items will persist over time. This school of thought mostly holds that Americans pay too little for food specifically and that this has kept wages arbitrarily low at the bottom of the wage scale and has stifled growth in the agricultural sector and that this has had ripple effects in the broader economy where low wage workers have little to no purchasing power. This school of thought holds that Americans need to pay more for many items, especially food, and that this will lead to increased wages for low wage workers across the board, increasing their purchasing power and that this will improve
the broader economy. Gasoline and oil are other sectors where are we have probably paid too little over time. This isn't to say what you pay at the pump or in the grocery store doesn't increase over time, it is an argument that the rate of growth in those two sectors has been stifled because of deflation and not inflation over the past few decades. What is happening in the current market is probably a mix of market corrections in certain sectors based on historical deflation and that those sectors will experience a persistent increase in prices (think agriculture, steel, gas, lumber...maybe...remember we don't KNOW anything ever). But that housing prices, restaurant prices and other sectors are experiencing transient "inflation" based on supply and demand that will go back to
normal levels over time. Here is an excellent overview.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/blog/...d-years-ahead/