Supply chains, though still far from normal, may be improving a bit
MANAGERS AT HUB GROUP, a transportation company, used to be able to click a few buttons at their headquarters in Illinois and, eight weeks later, receive a new shipping container from China, ready for use in America. But recently Phillip Yeager, the firm’s president, faced a headache. After a long wait at the congested port of Long Beach, its container was at last next in line to go ashore.
The fourth quarter may bring a bounce-back. Consumer confidence fell precipitously as the summer wore on and the Delta variant took hold. Now Delta is receding and confidence rebounding, which bodes well for shopping and travelling during the holiday season. . Analysts at Bank of America reckon that growth could pick up to an annual rate of 6% over the final three months of the year.
The surge in inflation is another big worry about the recovery. The personal consumption-expenditure price index, the Fed’s preferred gauge, increased by 4.4% in September from a year earlier, the highest in more than three decades. For much of the past year officials at the Fed and many other economists, too, have argued that inflation is only transitory, an outgrowth of gummed-up supply chains.
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