Even when the world ran on the gold standard not all value was actually backed by anything - now we're not even close. You can pick a stick up off the ground a

Even when the world ran on the gold standard not all value was actually backed by anything - now we're not even close. You can pick a stick up off the ground and whittle it into a boat - you have, by doing so[1], made the dollar worth slightly more since, for all the dollars in existence, there are now more goods to purchase. Inflation is spurred to increase over time for a variety of reasons - but asset accrual is not one - in actuality all the houses people own are constantly depreciating while the land they're built on continues to gain value from age - they gain value from the increased shortage of supply - and they gain value from the constantly increasing cost of building houses (labour and materials - the material increase mostly also due to labour). There are some incredibly complex feedback loops in the economy - especially in the housing market - but inflation isn't the issue for most first home buyers. Inflation does, however, hit people with savings harder - every dollar you have in a savings account is slowly losing value. That, however, is quite intended since savings accounts are poor tools for economic growth (banks can leverage the value for loans but there are more efficient investment methods - and that leaves us with all our eggs in one basket which might be a quite irresponsible bank that's pumping out subprime mortgages). 1. In a very very infinitesimally unmeasurably minor manner.