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Sometimes I look at the prices I'm paying at the grocery store or the way my electric bill

is skyrocketing. And I wonder how did we get here? Here being this very weird economy,

whose chief feature at the moment seems to be ballooning inflation. It does not help that I have a car

and that car needs gas. It is nearly five bucks a gallon where I live.

It's the only price that every single American sees a sign for on every stretch of every highway.

Right? Like it's the most, it's the most omnipresent price that Americans regularly encounter,

except for maybe milk, no even more so than milk. There aren't highway signs with milk prices.

Slate's Jordan Weissman is the guy I call when I have questions about the economy.

And I've got a ton of those at the moment.

I feel like there's so many things happening at once in the economy right now.

Like housing prices are really high. The stock market is behaving erratically.

And of course inflation is like all around.

Do all these things have the same cause?

That is a interesting question. That's kind of a philosophical question.

You know how I do, Jordan.

You know, it depends on how you want to answer that question. I'm going to say no,

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