With the admitted rate of consumer inflation running somewhere around 8 percent, and the real rate much higher, even central bankers can't hide the reality from us.

 So the commentariat has to explain to us why this is happening and make sure we blame the mysterious workings of capitalism for our troubles.

In other words, economics is back. Covid was a nice diversion, and Ukraine took up all the media's oxygen for a few months. But now we must deal with the economic devastation caused both by lockdowns and two years of crazed fiscal and monetary policy. Everyday Americans, stubborn as they are, care more about rising gas and food prices than the political class would like. So they trot out Nancy Pelosi to explain how government spending actually reduces inflation and push pseudoeconomic ideas like modern monetary theory to explain why more federal spending is always the cure.

But what is really happening?

First, consider the two covid stimulus bills passed by Congress in 2020 and 2021. These pumped more than $5 trillion directly into the economy in the form of payments to government, payments to households, unemployment benefits, employer payroll loans, cash subsides to airlines and countless other industries, and a host of grab-bag earmarks which had nothing to do with covid. This new money injected itself straight into the veins of the daily economy.