If the supply of cars is down why would that in and of itself drive the price up? Surely there's some flexibility in demand for cars?
It seems like a price increase in any individual item can be explained as a supply problem but every additional item that that gets added to the list is an argument for a money supply problem because on some level every item is substitutable.
1. Global supply chain disruptions are well documented, multiple automakers have had to shutdown factories for lack of parts.
2. Cars prices are increasing much more rapidly than the overall inflation rate. (I believe another comment in this thread said ~40% for used vehicles)
3. Total vehicle sales are still below their pre pandemic levels.
I never said that the money supply isn’t contributing to inflation. But it is quite clear that there is a significant supply problem when it comes to cars.
There will always be items that increase in price more than the average. Are you proposing to eliminate all the outliers in each report? In the end, people still need to buy cars, which are more expensive, so the inflation rate should reflect that.
> Car prices are being driven by supply chain issues more so than a surplus of dollars.