The weird ways companies are coping with inflation

INFLATION IS MAKINGCEOSP up for lost time. A word that many thought had gone the way of peroxide hair and trench coats in the early 1980s is now back on almost every ’s lips as they run through a barrage of compounding shocks—war, commodity crisis, supply-chain disruption and labour shortages—in their companies’ first-quarter results. From December to March, almost three-quarters of firms in the & 500 mentioned inflation in earnings calls, according to FactSet, a data gatherer. Such is the novelty, it runs the risk of making such turgid occasions almost riveting.In rich countries, producer prices are surging at their fastest rate in 40 years. That sounds bad. On the ground some say it feels awful. Thierry Piéton, chief financial officer of Renault, said the French carmaker initially predicted raw-material costs would double this year. Now it thinks they will triple. Elon Musk says Tesla’s suppliers are requesting 20-30% increases in parts for electric cars compared to this time last year. Others talk of five-fold increases in the costs of sending containers between Europe and Asia, a dearth of truck drivers in America, and a scramble for everything from corn syrup to coffee beans and lithium.