The Everything-Is-Weird Economy

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The U.S. economy can’t be this weird forever. That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway. Eventually, I think, financial news will be boring again. Eventually, I pray, the U.S. economy won’t resemble some ever-morphing Rorschach blot. But after a year of shortages, a Great Resignation, and rising inflation, I’m still waiting for normalcy.  

Here are three questions that get to the heart of what makes this moment so strange. Answering them, or at least attempting to answer them, could help indicate where things go in the second half of the year.

1. If gas prices are plummeting, why is inflation rising?

In the past two weeks, we’ve seen all sorts of evidence of “disinflation”—a decline in the rate of inflation. Retailers including Target, Gap, and Bed Bath & Beyond say they’re swimming in merchandise that they’ll have to . Oil prices have , and gasoline prices are now . The cost of shipping goods from China is . Microchip inventory is , which.