Parents: Is there anything we can't blame on them? They bear the responsibility for our neuroses, the less flattering aspects of our appearance, and, now, the worst inflationary crisis since the 1970s. The story of our inflation headache is one of scarcity: not enough people, homes, or ships. But while the arguments about post-COVID price chaos have focused overwhelmingly on short-term, pandemic-created triggers — such as closed factories and government rescue spending — inflation is also a story of larger tectonic shifts within the population.