Joe Biden is running out of other people’s money

Abba have reformed. Nato is working out how to deal with an aggressive Russian president. And there are shortages of everything. There were already plenty of clues, but now it is surely official: the 1970s are back. The United States has recorded its highest inflation rate for 32 years, with a 6.8 per cent rate that far surpassed anything even the most pessimistic forecasters expected. In truth, Joe Biden is about to turn into the new Jimmy Carter, a lame duck Democratic president presiding over a failing economy – and the crisis is entirely of his own making.

We already knew the US was witnessing a bout of inflation. Even so, the latest numbers still came as a shock. At 6.8 per cent, it is up almost a whole percentage point in a single month, and may well climb higher still before it starts to come under control. A clearly rattled White House, aware that surging prices will start hitting people hard very soon, put out an optimistically pre-prepared statement arguing the rate would start to drop soon.