But price is not the same thing as value, a fact we can never overlook. Let's say that the price of your stocks double, but at the same time gasoline prices and groceries also double. Are you ahead? Of course not. You will actually fall behind, because any profits from selling your inflated stock are taxable. Therefore the NET AFTER-TAX money you get whenever you do sell your stocks will buy fewer gallons of gasoline, a smaller cart of groceries, less of anything/everything..

When GWB became president our national debt was about 6 trillion dollars, a record high. Later this month, the national debt will pass 9 trillion dollars. Thus in just 7 years, our true inflation rate has been 50%, or 50/7 = over 7% each year. This is about double the inflation rate the government has been telling us, right? Interest is accruing on all this debt. There are only 2 ways of repaying this. The first would be to increase taxes (A LOT -- somewhere around $45,000 per taxpayer). The other way of repayment is increasing the money supply, we call it "printing money". This increased money supply is completely inflation, because national assets remain the same, not increasing one dollar.

This causes interest rates to increase, because banks, investors, and us plain old people will lend money only if the VALUE (purchasing power) upon repayment is higher than when the loan was made. Higher interest rates are further inflationary, because they are part of the costs paid by most corporations and most individuals.

What to do? I don't have all the answers, but "real things" which do not wear out or depreciate will always have value, as opposed to "paper things" like dollars, stock and mortgages. Precious metals ... gold, silver, platinum, real silver coins, etc, are real things which always have value and purchasing power, thus can be exchanged for things needed, and is easily kept "off the books". Beautiful.