That global central banks ran printing presses hot to counter the macroeconomic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is little disputed, nor that numerous supply and labor bottlenecks have tightened since.

Anyone who has glanced at an economics textbook or scanned the daily business press knows the potential consequences of printing money into a tenacious pandemic: higher inflation, and not just for an afternoon. Nary a day passes that an economist does not posit inflation will make a comeback, 1970s-style. That is, in disco-thumping double digits and searching for a crescendo.

Given years of an accommodative Federal Reserve, the inflation beat was bound to return, says Andreas Calianos, founder of Massachusetts-based Skepticus, a property advisory service. “The 2021 supply-chain disruptions ignited a lot of dry tinder, in which scarcity was met by a blast of demand fueled by cheap money,” says Calianos. While policymakers might hope for “transitory inflation,” in t