Only last year, many economists were expecting 2022 to be a period of strong economic rebound. Businesses would return to full operation post-Covid. Consumers would be free to splash their accumulated savings on all the holidays and activities they had not been able to do during the pandemic. It would be a new “roaring twenties,” some said, in reference to the decade of consumerism that followed the 1918-21 influenza.
Fast forward a few months and the more commonly cited parallel is the 1970s, when the Arab oil embargo helped create a prolonged period of economic hardship. Inflation surged to double-digit rates even as economies around the world stagnated — a painful mix of high prices and low growth known as “stagflation”.
