The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that as a plague, inflation is not in COVID-19's league -- but it is closer than you think. The Globe's Rob Carrick writes that worries that global inflation is entrenched have slammed the bond and stock markets in ways that directly affect your financial well-being. Anyone renewing a mortgage is caught in the latest financial market developments. Borrowers of all types have reason to be concerned, as do retirees and people close to retirement. So do people who job-hopped in the past year or two and sit at the bottom of company seniority lists. Inflation is the driver of all of this. Unless it backs off soon, we are in for the toughest phase yet in the economic and financial developments triggered by the pandemic. Rising oil prices only add to the potential for inflation to hang tough. Concerns about inflation, rates and the economy have unnerved the stock market, which had been holding up rather well. Some of the worst carnage in the stock market has affected a wide selection of beloved blue-chip dividend stocks. Mr. Carrick notes that yields on stocks like TC Energy, Enbridge, BCE and Bank of Nova Scotia are in the 6 to 8 per cent range, which is exceptional.