A couple of things. Pent up demand wasn't driven as much by stimulus checks as by families who retained their jobs during the pandemic but had nowhere to spend their money. Now the genie is out of the bottle, much like the boom after WWII.

Truckers will lose their jobs but more probably to automation. Expect self driving trucks in the future.

I'd rather live through a recession marked by high employment and inflation than stable prices and high unemployment.

We are in a recession! The recession is not caused by just gas prices, have you seen the increases in beef, eggs, cars, used cars, and hundreds of other items? Many of these items have gone up much more than gas. People don’t realize that when oil production was slashed last year, this causing the thousands of items that are made from oil to go up in price. Look at diesel, everything that uses 18 wheelers for transport has to go up. How about salary increases, when you pay a burger flipper $15 hr, you will see everything on the menu increase in price, which means, the buying power when wages were $8 hr are the same when salaries increase to $15 hr; businesses and corporations will increase prices to compensate for the increase, so basically nobody is better off but the people in fixed incomes are the 1’s to get hurt.
As for the market, big deal the market was up 10% last month, Nasdaq is still down 20%, Dow 10%. These have been bear rallies, we are nowhere close to being done with declines.
People need to see what’s going on behind the scenes to see why things are much worse. Have you seen car loan delinquencies? 2008 all over again. Banks are loaning 160% of car value and people are taking advantage of it with the average car payment around $720 a month. Now with everything much more expensive, people can’t afford it and they stopped making car payments.
As for employment, you can’t keep looking in the rear view mirror, look at companies now forcing layoffs. When we get into a recession, companies stop hiring and start layoffs which is happening now.

You know who to blame for that

Yup!

I have noticed a couple of Ford GTs on PCH although they are quite rare, even there. They are awesome to say the least.2020 Ford GT Buyer's Guide: Reviews, Specs, Comparisons

I have a 2017 Ford Escape that cost $27,000 new. I checked the price of a new one, and KBB says the fair price for the same 2022 model is $39,000, and you can no longer get a built-in GPS. I think I will keep it a few more years.

I didn't check the price of a Rolls Royce or Lamborghini. My dad would turn over in his grave if he thought I was driving one of those "cheap foreign cars".

Dividend investing
 

I have always stayed in the market. Never selling when going down Never trying to time the market. Buy and hold. Almost entirely investing in quality, high return mutual funds. I recently changed part of my portfolio to increase my income by purchasing high dividend ETF's. Specifically GlobalX covered call ETF's of the four major index's. All four are averaging about a 20% dividend paid monthly. Just my 2 cents.

Well the base price on the RR Cunninan is over $350,000; the base price of the Lamborghini Urus is over $225,000. Both are way above my pay grade.

I am still driving a 2017 SUV. It runs and drives just fine. I bought it in late December of 2016 trading in a 2004 model I had owned 13 years.

I’m also very much liking dividends these days. My old man (RIP) always said when approaching retirement, build wealth, eliminate debt and look to dividends for a little additional income. I’ll have to check that out. Sounds like it might be worth a bit more than just 2 cents.

My dad would still call them "cheap foreign cars".

ok thank you. :)

I don't believe that it is possible to talk about inflation without talking about oil and gasoline. Oil and gasoline increases mean shipping cost increases added to any imported or domestically produced item that must be delivered to the consumer. To talk about oil price increases one needs to mention the Ukraine War, which has driven up the worldwide cost of oil and gasoline. Also, Russia has drastically cut back its supply of natural gas to Europe, which can add to worldwide inflation. The Russian attack on the Ukraine started the recent inflation cycle because WAR causes UNCERTAINTY about the supply of goods through world trade. Fear of less supply has driven prices upward.
........Since the Ukraine supplies about 40% of the world's wheat, the uncertainty of that continuing has driven many food products upward. It is predicted to cause food shortages and STARVATION in Africa - which could cause mass migration of starving people toward Europe. The resulting chaos could further drive prices upward.

The US economy is HIGHLY dependent and intertwined with the world economy (more than most people realize). So, there is a good chance that US inflation will remain high as compared to the period pre-war in Ukraine. And likely inflation will NOT settle down until sometime after that WAR is resolved. As far as the stock market goes, I moved to cash and bonds about 1 year ago. I will wait until both the US and the world get over this cycle of chaos before jumping back into the stock market

It will probably become a recession soon. The US economy depends on the world economy and visa-versa. The
US economy is NOT sealed in some hermetically sealed container. Oil and wheat prices affect all of the world's prices on about everything - goods and services. The US is ONLY 4% of the world's population.

The US government is NOT to blame. The more likely entity to blame would be the oil and gas industry and distributors than MIGHT ? have taken advantage and jacked the price of gasoline up. But, they may have just adjusted prices upward to include an UNCERTAINTY margin due to the war in the Ukraine.

Crude oil is a worldwide commodity, the price of which is (I believe) set by the COMMODITIES EXCHANGE located in London.

Dividends pay you to wait.

Boomer