Profit-price spiral
There has also been increased discussion about how those corporate profits are contributing to inflation.
In a recent note, economists at ING looked at Germany, where inflation is increasingly a demand-side issue. While cautioning that so-called “greedflation” cannot be proven and there are variations by sector, they wrote that there are signs companies have been hiking prices ahead of the rise in their input costs, and that “from the second half of 2021 onward, a significant share of the increase in prices can be explained by higher corporate profits.” They call this a profit-price spiral.....
Not the 1970s
....Richard Portes, professor of economics at London Business School, told CNBC there is “no serious risk” of a wage-price spiral in the U.K., U.S., or major European countries, however. He also cited reduced union power in the private sector as a notable change from the 1970s.
“If you look at core inflation in the U.S., rentals, housing, have been driving that. That’s got nothing to do with wages — with rentals, it’s more sensitive to interest rate rises,” he added.
There is evidence — including from the IMF — that wage-price spirals aren’t common. The IMF research found very few examples in advanced economies since the 1960s of “sustained acceleration” in wages and prices, with both instead stabilizing, keeping real wage growth “broadly unchanged.” As with so much in economics, the idea that wage-price spirals even exist has also been challenged.
For Kamil Kovar, an economist at Moody’s Analytics, the scenario was always seen as a risk, not necessarily likely. But he, too, said that as time progresses it has become clear that it is not happening.
Wages are likely to increase fairly rapidly for Europe, but there’s “so much scope for wages to catch up with prices, to get to a spiral situation we would need something totally different to happen,” he said. The ECB expects nominal wage growth, not adjusted for inflation, of around 5% this year.
Real wages in Europe are so much lower than before the pandemic they could increase another 10% without going into a “danger zone,” Kovar said; while in the U.S. they are roughly equal but exiting the risky zone.
When comparing the current situation to the 1970s, Kovar said there were some similarities such as an energy shock; back then it was in oil, whereas this time it is bigger and broader, impacting electricity and gas too. There has also been a more rapid drop in energy prices as this shock has subsided.
And again, he noted the ongoing growth in corporate profits and the absence of powerful unions as yet more factors for why this time it’s different.
“It’s an example of how we are slaves to our historical parallels,” he said. “We potentially overreact even if the underlying situation is different.”

I am risk adverse by nature, but without a pension ( except SS) I knew my wife and I would have to depend on our investments for living expenses, vacations weddings etc when we retired.
Much of what I read pointed out that retiring into a multi year bear market would be a big problem, so we reduced equities after 60, and two years into retirement we are about 40%. If there is a significant pull back will increase it. After two or three years into retirement I am more comfortable knowing our basic living expenxes etc.

Looking forward to getting money out of short-term CD's. I tried it. Didn't like it. Will stick to money markets and floating rate T-Bills.

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You've done well the past year without the ups/downs that the folks in the market have, likely a little better than SPY without the drawdown, not too shabby.
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