This year has been a painful one for many. As we reflect on the last 12 months and look forward to the next, let’s take a quick inventory of where we are before we move toward where we’re going. Here’s the story: Let’s start from the very beginning.
The beginning
Jubilee was in the air. Didn’t it seem so? Markets were up, interest rates were down, a housing boom boomed, and businesses had sales, investment, and cash to keep them going for the foreseeable future.
It was good for a lot of people. But, of course, this couldn’t last forever, and many investors sold out of the stock market when it peaked in November 2021. They knew a slowdown would come: The Fed had indicated as much.
But inflation, what the Fed had once called “transitory,” seemed to be especially sticky.