Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.
SINGAPORE: Inflation is nowadays often on the tip of the tongue of most politicians worldwide, as people everywhere scramble to cope with runaway prices. A number of causes have been blamed for the mounting price hikes. There are the supposed disruptions in food and energy supplies as a partial fallout from the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. There are also the breakages in the global supply chains for critical materials and products amid the lockdowns that are still ongoing during the undulating coronavirus pandemic. So, when demand outstrips supply, prices rise. At least that was the theory. But I suspect there are also the opportunistically surging price adjustments made by some unscrupulous merchants to reap more profits for themselves at the expense of the consumers at large, who are already hard hit by the economic slowdown attendant to the pandemic.