So? The argument is that inflation always happens when there is fiat printing. We printed a shitload of dollars between 2000-2020, yet inflation was low throughout that period. So the explanation is clearly insufficient.
> The argument is that inflation always happens when there is fiat printing.
The whole point of fiat money is to print excessive amounts of it. It's attractive for governments because they can then spend money buying votes without having to raise taxes (though inflation is a tax). Meanwhile, they blame "speculators" and "profiteers" as scapegoats for the inflation.
> yet inflation was low throughout that period
The cumulative was a lot, and note that there was never any deflation.
The government is sandbagging CPI figures in order to lower its obligations that are tied to the official inflation rate, like Social Security payments. This isn't some underworld conspiracy theory; look at some of the academic discussion around ShadowStats.
If we take home prices, comparing 2000 to 2019 (before the pandemic-related craziness in the real estate market took place), they went up by 85% in that time period[0], compared to 48.5% in the CPI[1].
Compare 2000-2020 on that M2 graph compared to 2020-2022.
Jan 2000 - 4,666.2
Jan 2020 - 15,401.8
An increase of 10,735.6 over 120 months, average monthly increase of 89.46.
Aug 2022 - 21,711.4
An increase of 6,310 over 20 months, average monthly increase of 315.52
M2 grew 3.5x faster on average since 2020 than previously.
I'm not directly stating this is the main or only reason for inflation, but I imagine the rate of increasing the money supply 3.5x faster than before could have some kind of effect.