Inflation here? gas/grocery prices just continue to climb

Mr. Sparkle said
its not even necessarily greed - at a certain point when you see prices rising all around you, it seems rational for sellers to raise prices to stay ahead of what looks like rising costs and rational for buyers to spend more now to avoid higher costs later. Becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I think we've just about reached escape velocity on that cycle or are pretty close to it.

I don't disagree, yet. I hope we're at the tail end and prices start to stabilize again, but the longer this goes on, the bigger the downturn will be, and it will be painful for those getting used to these profit margins. They won't last, I don't think.