We were getting close to a fairly positive future.
There are three basic constraints to material and non-material goods:
- capital
- labour
- energy
There are other raw materials, but they aren't limiting factors. For example, processed Lithium is in short supply right now, but it's not raw Lithium that's the constraint. We don't have enough Lithium mines and processing facilities. capital/labour/energy, in other words.
We had a glorious period in the post-WW2 era where the price of energy & capital was dropping dramatically so the world was labour constrained. Wages skyrocketed, and the middle class emerged and prospered.
Then the 70s halted cheap energy and the 80s halted cheap capital and the world has stagnated since.
In 2019, things were looking up again. Capital was cheap, and green energy prices were dropping in their own version of Moore's law so it became crystal clear that energy would be very cheap soon.
But we can't have the proles regain the power they had in the 60's. Low unemployment, cheap energy and cheap capital means that power will shift from the rich to the middle class. So a crisis was invented. Let's pretend that the inflation caused by a supply crisis and a war in Ukraine is actually caused by cheap capital. That way we can get rid of cheap capital and throw a ton of people out of work so the rich and powerful can maintain control. While we're at it, we'll use the war as an excuse to stay on the petro-economy.
Luckily, it's not too late. I expect inflation to quickly turn negative as bottlenecks free up and high interest rates throw the economy into a recession forcing the fed to reverse the interest rate hikes.