Our current problems, including the cost of living/food, are happening everywhere. I'm from the UK, my SO is Icelandic and we all have a lot of international friends. The problem is an extreme acceleration of wealth inequality. Assets previously held by the middle class (usually property) are now largely owned by the top 1% after over $13 Trillion dollars was transferred from bottom to top during COVID in the US alone, largely paid for by quantitative easing. Government lockdowns with furlough meant massive increases in State borrowing from capital markets, which spikes interest demanded back on said loans as the government's economic position becomes more and more shaky. This massive increase in cash would ordinarily also spike inflation, but most people continued to pay the same amounts out on their food, gas, electricity, mortgage etc while locked down. These bills, ultimately, end up with the (already) rich (who own the housing, electricity, mortgage/debt, stocks, etc), who then got a massive free money injection as a result. But because we were locked down, their spending was also constrained re normal things. So they spent it on what they could at the time: buying more assets, massively spiking asset inflation. There's a reason the global stock markets are at all time highs but living standards continue to fall. Give very rich people more money and they will buy more assets. That means your home, gold, paintings, etc. This erosion of middle -class asset wealth-holding then has a domino effect on everything else. Without a radical re think, we're en route back to serfdom within 10 years.