[rsync]

"It's counterintuitive, but inflation is a good thing."

Inflation is neither bad nor good - it has costs and it has benefits and we as a democratic society need to decide where we would like to (attempt to) set that dial.

"Thankfully, average Joe American doesn't even know the Federal Reserve exists, so the FED is able to operate ..."

The degree to which average citizens are unaware of the fed is the degree to which it can behave outside of the bounds of our democracy - and that is negative.

Further, their ignorance which you so deride does not keep them from noticing when they are getting screwed. A great many elderly folks on fixed incomes and inflation adjusted COLAs have felt just that way for a decade.