Comment Re: Nah, this is just stage 1 (Score 1) 324
Other factors have kept inflation low for quite some time. The Treasury and Fed have been pumping money in at a rather alarming rate, and the inflation rate remains in the target range. Occasional spikes in oil prices notwithstanding, it's been under 2% for most of the last few years. (The September figure was 1.7%; the average for 2013 was 1.5%.)
I don't understand how we're currently having falling unemployment, low inflation, a record GDP, and a booming stock market. Some of that, of course, is dubious statistical measures, but they're the same measures we've always used (more or less). All that fiat currency should be producing huge amounts of consumption and inflation, and it isn't.
I've got a sneaking suspicion that we're looking at another crunch over the next few years as the Baby Boomers start to collect Social Security in earnest, though the first wave of it is already 67 years old. That has already caused us to to briefly deplete the Trust Fund a few years ago, and its growth has leveled off. That's gonna be bumpy.