> Prices going up is merely a potential symptom of inflation. No, seriously, increases in the price level is literally the definition of inflation. > Incomes

> Prices going up is merely a potential symptom of inflation. No, seriously, increases in the price level is literally the definition of inflation. > Incomes do not inherently go up hand in hand with prices. If you hold purchases stable, incomes have to go up with prices because every price someone pays is also a price someone gets paid. And in fact, this actually understates the income effects of inflation because it results in an increase in demand because the value of holding money decreases. I don't contend that there are no consequences of inflation, just that they are either only short term or that they happen anyway with more hysteresis in the absence of inflation. > Inflation also destroys savings, and the poor always have the smallest base of savings to begin with, and are least able to shift their savings into higher yielding investments. It does indeed reduce the value of savings. If you've got more savings than debt, inflation hurts you. That's not a position most of the poor are in. They're in the opposite position, statistically, where the losses to purchasing power from savings is outweighed by the gains from the reduction of debt. My core point is not that the problems that you cite are not problems, but that inflation is not their cause. Argentina's problems have to do with instability. There are costs imposed by any movement in the value of money and they tend to have feedback effects. Too much inflation is a bad thing because it has large cost effects and causes more inflation. The same is true for large amounts of deflation. The difference between prices and median income is the problem in your examples, but those problems would largely surface without the inflation because they are inequality problems. Inflation shortens the time scale on which the effects of income inequality is felt but it is not the source of the problem.