> The fed has successfully redefined the word “inflation” to mean “an increase in cost”, which conveniently leaves room to blame others for rising prices. This

> The fed has successfully redefined the word “inflation” to mean “an increase in cost”, which conveniently leaves room to blame others for rising prices. This was not the Fed (entirely), but the entire economic profession as a whole as the dismal science learned more about how things worked. This 1997 paper form the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland goes over the development history: * https://www.clevelandfed.org/publications/economic-commentary/1997/ec-19971015-on-the-origin-and-evolution-of-the-word-inflation https://www.clevelandfed.org/publications/economic-commentar... * PDF: https://www.clevelandfed.org/-/media/project/clevelandfedtenant/clevelandfedsite/publications/economic-commentary/1997/ec-19971015-on-the-origin-and-evolution-of-the-word-inflation-pdf.pdf https://www.clevelandfed.org/-/media/project/clevelandfedten... This was in response to a better understanding, going back to (at least) Keynes' General Theory of 1936, that the quantity theory of money was not very useful in the first place: > By referring to inflation as a condition of “too much money,” economists were forced to struggle with the operational issue of “how much is too much?” The quantity theory offered a clear answer to that question: Too much money is an in- crease in the money stock that is accom- panied by a rise in the general price level. In other words, an inflated money supply will reveal itself through its effect on the price level. When Keynesian economic theory challenged the direct link between money and the price level, inflation lost its association with money and came to be chiefly under- stood as a condition of prices. As even the Monetarist's monetarist, Milton Friedman, stated himself (Financial Times (UK), 7 June 2003): > The use of quantity of money as a target has not been a success. I'm not sure I would as of today push it as hard as I once did. Not even during the 1980 heydays of right-wing economic thinking under Thatcher and Reagan did anyone bother with monetarism, certainly Paul Volcker didn't. A few chapters on this in Samuelson Friedman by Nicholas Wapshott: * https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393285185 https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393285185 (His book Keynes Hayek is also good.)