[dragonwriter]

> But the biggest losers overall are those with fixed incomes dealing with rapidly rising prices.

So, non-SS pensioners?

Not: Social Security recipients (it has an inflation-indexed COLA).

Not: public benefit recipients (this inflation is in part a product of temporary increases to aid at the lower end of the economic spectrum).

Not: low-end labor, where prices are being bid up. (And also, often a beneficiary of the previous point.)

[mc32]

The government basket used to calculate inflation isn’t the same basket of goods pensioners buy from.

If inflation were “good” then the US along with many countries the word over would cause it to happen —it’s easy to do.

[dragonwriter]

> if inflation were “good” then the US along with many countries the word over would cause it to happen

Literally every single one of them that controls its own monetary policy (including the US) actively and deliberately does, so there's that.

[mc32]

My implication was extraordinary inflation isn’t good. The fed, since Bush/Clinton/Greenspan targeted 2-3.5% as desirable “good”.

What I mean is if what we have now (which is about double the norm) were good, we would have done it a long time ago and so would have others.

[AnimalMuppet]

Even those with COLAs. See, prices go up, and then, later, the COLA adjustment kicks in. It still hurts those who get COLA adjustments, just not as bad as it hurts those who don't.