Letter: What’s causing our inflation

Everyone is complaining about how high inflation is. Many say it’s President Biden’s fault. He may not have done a perfect job in handling this but he is not the only culprit. People are the biggest cause of inflation. It is based on the theory of supply and demand.

During the pandemic, so many people bought everything online, raising the demand level. Because the factories in China and everywhere else were shut down or at a reduced capacity (because of the pandemic), the supply couldn’t be fulfilled. The demand stayed high. Gasoline and airline ticket prices work the same way. As long as we keep up the demand for more gas than we are producing and airline tickets, for planes that don’t have crews to fly them, the supply will be low and the prices will be high. As long as demand is much higher than supply, you will have inflation.

Do 70 million people have to take a trip this holiday weekend? Can’t we stay and have a BBQ or party with friends, family and neighbors? Can’t we Zoom those far away like we did during the pandemic? Sure, it’s hard and we all wish prices were like they were before the pandemic, but I fear those days are gone.

We can help bring inflation down by stopping to demand so much. If the demand goes down, the supply catches up and prices go down.

The people who are complaining that inflation is so high and blaming Biden for it are causing part of the problem. Either quit complaining and pay the high price or stop spending and let the supply catch up with demand and the prices come down. Let’s all do our part to help solve this problem.

Ralph Merritt

Crystal Lake