TL;DR: economists are still stuck in the idea of the market as a perfect force for reaching optimal outcomes. They’re ignoring the simple fact that businesses are putting prices up purely to increase profits. And that they can do this because the economic ideal of perfect competition (where many small firms compete with near-identical products) does not exist. We have a small number of very powerful businesses—oligopolies—in nearly every market for consumer-facing goods.
‘Fiscal irresponsibility’ = debt. Inflation is just from the gov’t printing money to buy our way out of the debt, and distribute the debt to the whole system.
The problem is, the underlying debt isn’t paper. It isn’t even gold. It’s ultimately borrowed from actual material resources, and systems of nonmonetary wealth. …and that kind of debt can’t be printed away.
When those systems of material resources and nonmonetary wealth run dry, they’ll continue printing until the value of the money is less than the paper it’s printed on.
So, it’s not a matter of “it’s all about inflation and not about debt.” It’s a matter of debts that will be paid by natural law, coming due in the form of inflation.
Oh God, are you an armchair economist? Speaking as a scientist. Whoah.
yawn