> Except the scarcity is largely driven by increased demand due to government stimulus. How do we know this? The economy swung heavily in favor of labor and w

> Except the scarcity is largely driven by increased demand due to government stimulus. How do we know this? The economy swung heavily in favor of labor and wages have been on the rise for a while now, since before the pandemic even. The previous president was celebrating how quickly wages were growing during his tenure. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wage-growth https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wage-growth You can see there that wage growth from 2017-2020 was the longest sustained period of growth above 4% since 2004-2007. Given that, a solid explanation is that people are making more money now, thus spending more. Unfortunately, y-charts doesn't go back far enough to really give a long term picture. But even looking back 5 years, the increase of the past few months is pretty much exactly the size of the gap left in march 2020. For all we know, this spike in retail spending is merely pressure being released from the huge loss in retail spending encountered last year. By October, the numbers could very well be back at that normal trend line. The USA was in the middle of an economic bull run when it crashed right into the side of the worst pandemic most have ever seen. The momentum of that growth is still there, but the economy has been tossed around by supply chain issues, reduction in new labor, and workers migrating between industries in an already tightening labor market. We have to appreciate that the economy experiences growing pains, and that the government is not the be-all, end-all of economy growth.