“Either the cost of candy has gone up, or (and this is the biggie) the value of the dollar has gone down.”
The first cars I purchased in my early twenties (brand new) cost around $2000. I’d say the value of the dollar has gone way down. Why is that a given that we don’t question? What really causes inflation?....its not a good economy as we are told.
What really causes inflation?....
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I’m not an economist (nor do I play one on TV), but one reason in my mind is when we (the US) took the silver out of our coins. It used to be that the majority of a quarter’s value was the value of the silver it contained. This tended to limit how much inflation could cheapen our money.
Now I understand that inflation was going on, even with silver in our money. I can remember my parents complaining in the 50s about being able to carry $10 worth of groceries in just one bag.
The fact is we tend to view the dollar as a unit of measure like a foot or a pound, but it really isn’t. It is nearly always shrinking, usually at such a slow rate that we don’t notice the shrinking on a day to day basis, but over a couple of decades, you can really see it.