It’s not so much that they were early - what happened is the government has been heavily manipulating gold / silver down over the last couple years when all indicators are it should’ve gone up.
The inflation is all there - they’re just hiding it as long as they possibly can.
Last year a 2X4 stud was $1.99-2.25.
This year it is $2.80-3.29.
These numbers added together and divided by 2 give a price rise of $0.92. Or just about a %50 increase in price.
Wages do not have to go up for inflation to happen. Nixon caused inflation in the 70’s when he put wage controls into force. True this was caused by a shortage of supply, but prices went up with out wages going up.