Devaluation of the unit of account is the main factor behind the confusing signals. If the thing you're measuring value with halves in value, all the measured

Devaluation of the unit of account is the main factor behind the confusing signals. If the thing you're measuring value with halves in value, all the measured values will double. If we take the dollar as an example, there's around twice as many dollars in existence as there were 10 years ago, halving the value it would otherwise be, and so doubling all the dollar-denominated figures. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m2 https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m2 There's certainly nothing healthy about doubling the money supply - this means that there is double the total debt (the mechanism by which new monetary units are created) - but it will cause figures like GDP, share prices and even wages to a degree to increase, even though they haven't gone up in actual value (in the case of wages they've gone down in value)