Inflation will come down, probably more than many people expect. This reflects the sharp turns in some commodity prices, weakness in China, improvements in supply chains, and the strong dollar. There will be claims of victory (not by the Fed), but they will be wrong. Inflation will not come down anywhere close to the target level of 2 percent, the Fed’s stated target. This is because the inertial wage-price interaction is now clearly in play and will not turn around any time soon. Thus, the Fed will have to continue to tighten. The purpose of tightening is to decrease activity and, through this, put downward pressure on wage and price increases. Thus, the Fed will try to achieve a slowdown. It is already in play, even if the GDP numbers almost surely underestimate activity in the first two quarters of 2022. While the focus has been on monetary policy, there is a substantial fiscal consolidation at work, with a major decrease in the deficit. The effect of this consolidation is...

Fascinating to see ?? evidence of trade foundations changing. If economic efficiency is no longer the?to rule them all, then WTO members must reform international rules and institutions. Not lawless development, but risk of unending reliance on exception/extraordinary times.

Despite hopes that food security -- which suffered major setbacks in 2020 -- would start to recover in 2021, the latest State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report (SOFI) shows that 2021 brought further setbacks.

World hunger and severe food insecurity grew, making the world's goal of achieving "zero hunger" by 2030 even more unlikely. In fact, according to current projections from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 8% of the world's population will still be undernourished in 2030 -- just as much as when these goals were first set in 2015.

The report released in July draws on data from many sources, including food security data collected for the FAO in the Gallup World Poll*, to provide the latest update on the world's progress toward ending hunger and ensuring food security in the second full year of the pandemic.