What most people call inflation is actually depreciation or your purchasing power. Most people however don't recognize that difference even though it is a fundamental one since we have all been trained to see value as expressed in Dollars.
Are Dollars really money though?
You may not have noticed until recently but the "value" of dollars in your account are not stable because the state keeps printing new ones by the trillions devaluing the dollars in your account every minute of every day non-stop. Lately, the amount of dollars created out of thin air and pumped into the economy is unprecedented, we have jumped the shark and are now heading quickly to the intrinsic value that all currencies (including the dollar) eventually arrive at: ZERO.
When you borrow rapidly depreciating dollars and use them you purchase rapidly appreciating assets like Lumber, Gold, Oil and just about everything dollars buy right now, you benefit from the depreciation and insulate yourself from loss of buying power. That is why people instinctively hoard goods they perceive will run out and therefore require more dollars to buy in the future.
"Government spending and Fed stimulus has tripled the size of our national debt in less than 14 years. And, of course, inflation has spiked as the amount of dollars injected into the global system causes the buying power of our currency to decline dramatically. More fiat dollars equals less buying power. This is reality."
I use the word "hoard" because that is the insulting term the state tends to use to demonize people who are just looking out for their own interests. The state loves to criticize folks who take steps to protect themselves from the purposeful strip-mining of their labor.
I'm talking about this subject now because last week the White House put out an executive order which is probably the most important one no one has ever heard of simply because the media didn't report it. It happend though:
"I’m From the Federal Government and I’m Here to Help": President Biden Signs Executive Order on Digital Assets.
One fine day you will receive a notice that all the dollars you have will expire. You'll be given a grace period to turn them in and exchange them for the governments new currency but, this time, it will be digital. That means all private financial transactions will be gone and the state will wet it's beak on absolutely everything you buy.
Friends, I'm not here to give a dissertation on the differences between money and government issued currency so let me just say this: We are entering a period where the dollar's purchasing power (yours and mine that is) is about to get decimated. There are pictures on the internet of streets in Venezuela where their currency (the Bolivar) can be seen strewn on the ground so worthless no one even cares to pick them up. They're literally more trouble than they're worth. Can't happen? Just watch!
The war in Ukraine has accelerated the process and we're about to experience a Venezuela-like drop in our living standards the likes of which no one in this generation has ever seen. There is only one thing holding the dollar up right now - OIL. The arrangement that allowed the dollar to remain the worlds reserve currency after President Nixon defaulted in 1971 closing the gold-dollar connection is that everyone in the world can only purchase Oil using dollars.
That just changed and the end of the dollar reserve currency status is at hand. Russia, China & Iran along with South Africa, Brazil and India are all demanding payments in other forms of currency.
Fun Fact: Just before the middle east "wars" in Iraq and Libya, both leaders in those countries started demanding payment in Gold rather than dollars for their oil. Soon thereafter they were both turned into road kill from US attacks.
Everyone can protect themselves but doing exactly what the central bankers have been doing since 2009, exchange dollars for hard assets wherever you can.