If stagflation is coming, what can we do about it?

[Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, an empty clown car of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - [Stagflation is hard]( to corral. - [Ford’s big battery deal]( may disappoint. - The FDA needs to [make a call on e-cigs](. - Investors are [betting on an NYC rebound](. Like fighting stagflation, sort of. How Stagflation Is Like a Gator in a Recycling Bin The only [video]( you need to watch today is the one of a Florida man capturing an alligator with a recycling bin, while wearing slides and socks. I have a lot of questions. Is there no Animal Control in this town? Wouldn’t sneakers have been a better footwear option here? How quickly can we send this man to Congress? But this video is also a reminder of the big economic issue of the day: inflation. Or, rather, stagflation. As Mark Gilbert notes, thanks to the pandemic, global warming, stuck ships and other headaches, [the world is suffering shortages of everything](. Northern Ireland even has a [shortage of clowns](. This can only lead to regrettable panic-buying of clowns, which means we need to repeat our regular PSA: Do not fill [plastic bags]( with clowns. Use only containers approved for clowns. Shortages make prices rise, making interest rates rise from the primordial ooze in which they’ve wallowed for the past year, Mark notes. All of this helps the inflation hawks perched at the world’s central banks win their arguments with the doves. That means tighter monetary policy ahead. That means less money printer go brrr. And the [stock market might finally be catching on](, warns John Authers. Then again, tighter monetary policy won’t unstick ships from the Suez Canal or end droughts in China or make workers show up at docks to unload freight. Trying to corral supply-side inflation by pushing on demand levers at a time when demand is slowing anyway seems even dicier than trying to catch a gator in a trash can. Maybe the best we can hope is that Peak Shortage is near. The clown shortage might be a sign. More concretely, Andrea Felsted writes, British retailer Next says it’s running low on sweatpants and sofas — can’t imagine why — but it can [see the end of its supply-chain worries ahead](. Sometimes if you just leave a gator alone it will go away.   What If Hoarding, But With Batteries Along with clowns, the U.K. is also suffering from a shortage of gasoline for clown cars, not to mention natural gas to heat clown homes in the winter. Panic-buying and hoarding are natural responses to such crises, and they are generally bad. They make the crises worse. But Liam Denning suggests we can [channel this natural squirreling instinct to productive ends](. For example, maybe we can convince people batteries are a useful form of hoarding, turning energy crises into chances to goad people to invest more in battery development. But the right kind of investment matters. Ford understandably made a big fuss this week about a deal with a South Korean company to build EV batteries at factories in the U.S. But Anjani Trivedi warns the South Korean company relies on an [unproven, potentially unsafe, expensive battery technology]( that may never pay off. EV clown cars remain a distant dream. Maybe the Gator Guy Could Run the FDA? Did you realize the Food and Drug Administration still doesn’t have a full-time leader, eight months into President Joe Biden’s term? He has a lot on his plate, obviously, but the pandemic is kind of a big one, and the FDA plays kind of a big role in fighting it. It has other important stuff to do, too, including deciding [whether to take flavored e-cigarettes off the market](. Bloomberg LP founder Mike Bloomberg writes the agency blew a Sept. 9 deadline for making this call, despite having two years to make up its mind. The choice shouldn’t be hard, Mike argues: Flavored vapes lure kids into nicotine addiction and shouldn’t be on the market. Telltale Charts Risk-adjusted returns for [NYC housing are the highest of any big U.S. city](, a vote of confidence in the Big Apple’s recovery, writes Matthew Winkler. Also Justin Fox and Noah Smith had a vicious, hurtful argument (not really) about New York today, which you can [watch here](, if you dare. Attention, Joe Manchin: [West Virginia needs Biden’s big spending bill]( more than most states do, writes Noah Smith. Further Reading It just doesn’t pay to be a short seller. [Even the best at it are taking brutal losses]( right now. — Nir Kaissar [Crispr gene-editing technology still has promise](, even if the occasional trial disappoints. — Max Nisen [Singapore’s obsession with Covid numbers]( has made people anxious who are otherwise safe. — Rachel Rosenthal [Challenging literature makes us more empathetic](, which is exactly what our broken politics needs. — Stephen Carter ICYMI [Insider trading is rampant](. (But [what can you do about it](? asks Matt Levine.) Half-dose [Moderna booster shots]( are coming. YouTube is [blocking anti-vaccine content](. Kickers Sea slugs have figured out [how to be solar-powered](. (h/t Scott Kominers) Five zebras have been [on the loose in Maryland]( for a month. Climbers reach the [bottom of Yemen’s Well of Hell]( for the first time. [AI completed Beethoven’s]( uncompleted Tenth Symphony. Notes:  Please send solar sea slugs and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. 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