Inflation is a word used to describe the successive increase in the prices of goods and services, but saying that printing money is the cause of inflation is wrong, as the market needs printing money and controlled inflation to grow. Most economies indicate that inflation of 1% to 2% is good for the economy, but excessive inflation that The problem is not controlled by the central bank, as the prices of goods and services continue to increase, which affects the economy and has reasons:
Random printing of money.
Wrong policies of the central bank.
Corruption, government laxity, and spending on projects that are not economically feasible.
Inflation due to fuel prices or supply chains.
If the government does not print money, inflation may occur due to the reasons above.
I agree with most of your opinion!
I will present my point of view:
Inflation is when fiat loses value, or goods increase in price relative to fiat.
For simplicity, I consider the price of goods
X = Total amount of money / Total amount of goods.An increase in X means inflation is occurring.
What we can most easily see: when the economy only grows no more than 10% per year, meaning the amount of new goods produced does not increase more than 10%, but for some reason the government prints more than 10% of total amount. This causes X to increase => inflation.
This is the simplest and most common logic because printing money is the simplest solution the government can implement to handle the immediate problem in the economy, not including the problem of inflation. There are many problems in the economy that can motivate governments to print money: disaster or epidemic relief, investment in infrastructure, repayment of government debt. Normally, printing more money than the increase in goods in the economy is seen as a loan from the future with the expectation: print $1 today so the economy grows and creates $2 worth of goods in the future.
The losses of state-owned companies and ineffective investment of the national budget also create pressure to print money to compensate. That action is seen as pushing the losses towards the people.
Our economy is being driven based on the fear of fiat devaluation: people are encouraged to consume to promote the circulation of cash flow, creating growth momentum for the economy. That's the government's expectation so they try to keep inflation around 2-4% per year. Usually they do much better, meaning inflation is usually no less than 5% ^^
Sometimes, the denominator of X, Total amount of goods, decreases when a break in the supply chain also causes X to increase, creating inflation. This is happening when exports of goods from China are stalled because of the pandemic, Russia's oil and gas sources are limited due to sanctions, and Ukrainian grain is also more difficult to export, or at a higher average cost due to war. The prices of these goods have increased rapidly.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, we have a combo: reduce goods, increase money printing, causing inflation to become extremely serious. We are facing that and have to accept a new, higher price for most goods.
>> In short, blaming money printing is just a way to condemn the government's ineffectiveness in running the economy.
P/s: believe me, in the future, if aliens invade the earth, governments will also act by printing money
