Is our card-only culture fuelling inflation?

Is anything anywhere getting noticeably better – economically speaking – or at least less bad? Are commodities and manufactured goods beginning to move more freely, for example, to ease the demand pressures that are stoking inflation? It’s good news that the number of container ships anchored off Los Angeles-Long Beach waiting to unload has fallen from more than 100 in January to around 20 at the latest count, but I note also that dockers there are demanding a 10 per cent pay rise. Drewry’s World Container Index – the handiest indicator of global shipping costs – has fallen 32 per cent from its peak last autumn, but remains five times higher than in the autumn of 2019.

Likewise, prices of most fertilisers dipped last month but are still scorchingly higheras input costs for food producers than a year ago. On the manufacturing front, microchip prices have fallen almost 40 per cent since January, but only after quadrupling during the pandemic.