My personal opinion going into this mess was that, sooner or later, the U.S. was going to inflate its way to a lesser impact of existing obligations. As it bec

My personal opinion going into this mess was that, sooner or later, the U.S. was going to inflate its way to a lesser impact of existing obligations. As it became clear that the big banks would remain... "sacrosanct", I figured that the inflation would start once they were out from under their own balance sheet woes with particularly with respect to lower performing loans and paper built thereon. Et voilà. TL;DR: They've given the "big boys" time to prepare and position themselves. Now the screws get put to everyone else. P.S. By the by, have you been watching e.g. the price of many staples in the supermarket? (Not to mention gasoline, and a few other things.) For many "everyday" folks, inflation showed up already some years ago.