The explanation for inflation is always money printing (mostly via issuance of state bonds), because that's literally the only way to get a general rise in pric

The explanation for inflation is always money printing (mostly via issuance of state bonds), because that's literally the only way to get a general rise in prices, which is what inflation is meant to mean. In practice, measuring literally all prices is very hard, so governments measure a small subset and then call a change in that basket "inflation". The baskets were perhaps once a reasonable proxy but now it leads to problems, because it causes people to lose sight of what inflation really is. Higher gas prices is not inflation, it's just higher gas prices. Higher everything prices is inflation, but unless the money supply increases it's impossible for all prices to rise. With a stable monetary base a price rise in some essentials will cause other products to lower prices to try and juice demand that's falling away, or they will disappear entirely as society gets poorer (i.e. price = infinity) but companies going bankrupt because they can no longer sell their products doesn't affect statistical measures of prices. So these are very imperfect proxies. Suffice it to say that high public debt means economic activity is being distorted in favour of the state's priorities over those of the citizens. History provides many examples of where that leads when taken too far.