This would be true except Trump should be helping pump too. He started the handouts. Even came with a "Trump Signature" and brag on the letterhead.
One thing I didn't appreciate until recently is the costs imposed on big sellers by supply shocks. I mean logistics, including warehousing. Walmart and similar sellers in the 21st century got their logistics down to a science, buying and storing only what they needed. Supply shocks have blown that all up. They are all constantly realizing they bought too much of one thing or another and having to store them now., as consumers change their habits That's a higher cost. Plus, the supplier now has a big buyer suddenly cut them off. Then make a big order way later. Repeat. That raises their costs too! I saw a stat that Walmart had 20% higher costs due to this!
It's not material cost, it's supply shocks that are still reverberating across the economy. We think of it as supply cost plus profit, and try to pin higher inflation on one or the other, but really it's that overhead costs exploded.
This was like throwing a bowling ball in the bathtub. There's a big wave and splash, but then smaller waves that continue going back and forth for a while. We had high transitory inflation from the big shock, but this lower level effect is going to bounce around for a bit more.
