World Bank president Malpass is on the newswires speaking to the global economy:

  • inflation rate excluding energy could be 5% 2023 unless supply disruptions and labor market pressures subside
  • risk of global recession in 2023 rises amid simultaneous interest rate hikes by central banks
  • central banks may have to raise rates by additional 2 percentage points to reach inflation targets
  • central bankers should shift focus to boosting production, instead of reducing consumption
  • further slowdown in global growth likely as more countries fall into recession
  • further rate hikes in financial markets stress could slow global GDP growth to 0.5% in 2023, -0.4% in per capita terms, meeting the definition of recession
  • now much more concerned about generalized stagflation in global economy
  • today's debt issues different than in earlier crises, private sector debt now 5 times greater than public-sector debt

The interesting comment is the one asking for central banks to shift focus to boosting production instead of reducing consumption. This argues for NOT raising rates to slow the consumption, but trying to increase supply. The dynamics of supplyare not always easy to reach especially with tight labor markets, and the lag time between creating production capacity.

The chip industry is on a fast course of trying to increase supply, but that will take a few years. Meanwhile, car companies still complain about chip shortages and supply constraints as a result. The issues are not easily or quickly solvable.