[pieceofthepuzzle]

“Many of those items have nearly doubled in price.”

Yes. Plus some of the ‘big’ expenses in life, like health care, and college/university tuition have skyrocketed - while salaries have stagnated.

[Alberta's Child]

Most of the "big" expenses in life that you refer to are paid by third parties instead of through direct buyer-seller transactions. That is why the prices have increased at ridiculous rates.

For almost anything that isn't directly tied to commodity-based prices, prices have been pretty stagnant. Go to an electronics or furniture store and see how cheap some things have become that used to be considered very expensive.

One of the more alarming numbers I've seen in recent days is that the posted prices for transporting a loaded shipping container from Asia to the U.S. are almost less than the cost of actually transporting it. In other words, the shipping lines are practically transporting them and making no money on it at all.