[fbonetti]

> inflation is just the trend in average prices

Price inflation is not some force of nature - it’s deliberately induced by the central bank out of a belief that falling prices are bad. The trend in market economies is for everything to get cheaper every year. Look at TVs for example.

There’s no “magic” in inflation. If you have more dollars chasing the same number of goods, those dollars will have less purchasing power. Because the Fed creates new money if the form of bank reserves, the things that to tend to be inflated the most are assets purchased with loans (real estate, equities, businesses, etc). Nobody takes out a loan to buy tomatoes but they will take out a loan to fund a new business.