To hear many pundits tell it, sky-high inflation in the US – 9.1% in June – is the outcome of the misguided policies of the administration and the Federal Reserve. But it is exceedingly unlikely that today’s surging prices owe entirely to the profligacy of the $1.9 trillion Covid-relief plan president Joe Biden signed last year, or to the Fed’s failure to act quickly enough to tighten monetary policy. The fact of the matter is that inflation is a global phenomenon, and all kinds of countries