Posted on Nov 30, 2021, 5:50 p.m.Updated Nov 30, 2021, 6:14 PM
We have to go back to the prehistory of the euro to find such inflation. The last time prices rose to 4.9% in the countries that now form the single currency space was in 1991, a decade before the euro slipped into our wallets. But at the time, inflation was ebbing. This time around, it still seems to be on an upward slope.
And this prospect is staggering. Anyone predicting a 5% price hike two years ago at the end of 2021 would have been considered a bonkers sweet tooth. Only a mechanism both incredible and unpredictable, triggered by an extraordinary epidemic, could bring about a change of such magnitude. It has already surveyed a whole series of economic indicators: production, partial or total unemployment, public expenditure, air traffic, exports, etc.
–
