Internationally aging populations are a systemic source of inflation in the cost of producing goods.

I recommend Manoj Pradhan & Charles Goodhart’s, “The Great Demographic Reversal” (2019) for more on the topic.

Covid occurring since then has exacerbated the international debt issues, as well as plucked more of the valuable remaining years away from our labor force’s working years. See the number of early retirements that occurred during the pandemic.

That we’re also seeing a hot war, a trade war, and the ripples of a goosed economic system during covid at the same time? Can’t make it up.

Edit: I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for the fed to resolve this, they’d have to crush assets to oblivion to keep pricing of labor the same as it dries up due to retirements.

AI on the other hand has a lot of potential to bail us out here