Warehouses are overwhelmed by America's shopping spree
&gt; Meanwhile, shoppers have been spending at record levels, unleashing all the money saved by not traveling or going out — and their cooped-up pandemic anxiety — onto buying things<p>I don&#x27;t think its all money saved from not traveling and going out. I think a large percent of the savings had to do w&#x2F; the generous unemployment benefits and stimulus payments. If you look at the person savings rate in the US, you&#x27;ll see two huge spikes around the time of the transfer payments and then level  near pre-pandemic levels in the last few months.<p>Strange it wasn&#x27;t mentioned as a possible cause.<p>[EDIT] The reason that its important is that a lot of articles talk about &quot;supply&quot; or &quot;worker&quot; shortages as though its some naturally occurring innocuous condition, and not a result of policy. If you think its just money people saved up from last year, then everything will even out. Instead of buying a car last year, you&#x27;ll buy it this year. But it ignores the introduction of 12 trillion dollars into the system (or around 30% of the current money supply). Its unprecedented and it&#x27;s the reason you&#x27;ve seen financial assets rally to well past pre-pandemic levels. And for some reason, we think financial asset appreciation not based on fundamentals is positive. But this is beginning to creep into other assets and people are beginning to notice.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&#x2F;series&#x2F;PSAVERT" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&#x2F;series&#x2F;PSAVERT</a>