[sethg]

“The value of the dollar” is a meaningless term. A dollar only has value relative to something else. And in that sense, if I want to know what the value of a dollar is, I just look at what I can buy with it. (I suppose if the government were regulating wages and prices this technique wouldn’t work, but the last President to try such a thing was that famous socialist, Richard M. Nixon.)

Virtually every document that I have seen talking about “inflation”, in the economic sense, defines it as “prices going up”. You can define it as “an increase in the money supply” if that makes you happy. And I could define it as “mint-chocolate-chip ice cream”. Hey, I wish I had some more inflation....