We need to talk about what ‘transitory inflation’ means

This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a consumer price index of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. Sign up here.Today’s Agenda Inflation is making us [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a consumer price index of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - Inflation is [making us all miserable](. - [China’s crisis continues](. - Rivian has [a friend in Bezos](. - Banks have [some money to give you](. Still Transitory After All These Years These are dark days for Team Transitory. Central bankers and others started using that word to describe inflation roughly 10 months ago. It’s still (probably) apt. But after 10 months you can understand why some people aren’t buying it. One problem is that we’re not all on the same page about what “transitory” means. Merriam-Webster defines it as “of brief duration.” Oxford Languages calls it “not permanent.” There’s quite a gap between those two definitions! My lunch today was of brief duration. Our solar system is not [permanent](. One of those feels much more transitory to me than the other. In October, after months of being called transitory, inflation was [higher]( than at any point in the past 31 years, swamping even the high wage growth workers have enjoyed in this age of shortages in everything. People might still be [better off]( overall. But you can kind of understand why, despite record-high stock prices and decent job growth, many [are still not thrilled with the economy](, writes Tyler Cowen. One silver lining is that wage growth, high as it’s been, [hasn’t yet triggered a wage-price spiral](, Nir Kaissar writes. Sometime in the next several months, energy prices, supply-chain disruptions and weird pandemic spending habits will (probably) fade into memory like yesterday’s lunch. Inflation as we know it today will (probably) die, thwarting the arms race between prices and employers.  Still, pulling for Team Transitory this year is like supporting the Chicago Cubs during the transitory 108-year stretch between their 1908 and 2016 World Series wins: It never gets easier. It has subjected the Fed and President Joe Biden to relentless mockery and political pressure. Those will only ratchet up [the longer]( this lasts. Biden’s spending agenda may be in peril; it has [nothing]( to do with inflation, but it sounds inflationary, so it might have to go. And the [Fed might dial back on QE faster]( than markets expect, writes Brian Chappatta. Then we’d have a taper tantrum to add to our woes. Even without one, Robert Burgess writes, the [stock market seems to be in for a transitory period]( of not-greatness. Bonus Fed Reading: - Both [Lael Brainard and Jay Powell are solid picks for Fed chair](, though Brainard is more likely to make a rookie mistake. — John Authers - Biden should [keep Powell, put Brainard in charge of regulation]( and make Raphael Bostic a governor. — Narayana Kocherlakota China’s Money Bonfire Has Plenty of Kindling Another seemingly transitory crisis that keeps crisis-ing is China’s property-development sector. Evergrande has been melting down for months, and U.S. markets have mostly dismissed it because we’re all sure Beijing won’t let another Lehman Brothers happen. But even if the risk of sudden contagion is off the table, slow contagion is no Ivy Getty [picnic](. Investors are [avoiding even China’s investment-grade property developers](, Shuli Ren writes, because: - Ha ha, [credit ratings](, good one. - Nobody knows how much off-the-books debt these companies have, nor how much cash they have to pay said debts. Richard Cookson goes so far as to argue China’s whole [debt-driven economic model is as busted]( as Japan’s was in the 1990s. If so, then China might avoid a crisis but face a lost decade of growth instead. Bonus China Reading: Beijing missed out by [not issuing some green bonds]( in its latest euro-borrowing round. — Marcus Ashworth Artist’s rendition. Do not attempt. Photographers: Kena Betancur/AFP (Bezos); Patrick T. Fallon/AFP (Rivian). Illustration: Jessica Karl A Rivian Runs Through It In this time of people buying Shiba Inu coins and JPGs of apes, you might dismiss electric-truck maker Rivian [shooting]( to a $100 billion valuation in its first trading day as so much meme-stonk foolishness. And maybe it is. Nobody knows anything. But there is at least a soupçon of old-timey business logic at work here, writes Conor Sen: [It has a major customer in Amazon](. You know the one. Maybe you’ve seen its trucks at your house, twice a day? This gives Rivian instant legitimacy and a potential order backlog reaching well into Connor Roy’s first White House term. Bonus EV Maker Reading: Add British EV maker [Arrival to the list of SPAC flameouts](. — Chris Bryant Telltale Charts Investors don’t seem to realize [banks have a lot of cash they can give back]( to shareholders, writes Paul Davies. Western Europe is [better vaccinated than eastern Europe]( but must guard against complacency, writes Lionel Laurent. Further Reading The rich world [isn’t moving fast enough]( to give developing countries climate aid. — Bloomberg’s editorial board Big [climate pledges are a joke]( when governments and companies can’t take the hard steps necessary to meet them. — Anjani Trivedi [Two-year college degrees aren’t worth as much]( these days. — Justin Fox The [GOP punishing its own for infrastructure votes]( is a sign of the party’s dysfunction. — Jonathan Bernstein GE may be breaking up, but [some conglomerates are thriving](. — Brooke Sutherland Is crypto really worth $3 trillion? Probably not, but then it’s [not wise to be either over- or under-exposed to it](. — Aaron Brown Morgan Stanley’s offer to [let you buy pre-IPO startup shares]( isn’t the great deal it seems. — Alexis Leondis ICYMI China and the U.S. [released a surprise COP26 joint statement](. Wall Street plans to [cut jobs in New York City](. It’s [not easy to spy on China](. Kickers New ketchup made with (sort of) [Martian tomatoes]( just dropped. Myrtle Beach trash can [washes up in Ireland](. (h/t Ellen Kominers for the first two kickers) The [case for screen time](. Toward [a theory of the ’90s Dad Thriller](. Notes:  Please send Martian tomatoes and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Twitter]( and [Facebook](. Like Bloomberg Opinion Today? [Subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more](. You’ll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. 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