by Gabriela Berrospi
Forbes
Many of us in the Latino community in the United States have firsthand knowledge of the devastating effects of hyperinflation, having seen it wreak havoc in countries like Venezuela, Argentina, Cuba and even my homeland, Peru—with Venezuela’s situation among the most severe. In the wake of a global pandemic, the U.S. economy faces a critical challenge that could reshape its future: a significant and long-term rise in inflation.
Since 2021, the cumulative inflation rate has soared to over 18%, with the current annual rate at about 3.5% at the time of writing. This steady price climb is reminiscent of the early stages of Venezuela’s economic meltdown, which began subtly and later spiraled into a catastrophic crisis. To analyze this situation, it is important to note the difference between deflation and disinflation. Deflation means prices are generally going down, while disinflation means inflation is going up—but at a slower rate. We are currently in a disinflation phase, which means inflation is not improving.
Among prominent economists, no one was more explicit than former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers in warning that President Joe Biden and the Federal Reserve Board risked igniting inflation by overstimulating the economy in 2021. Soaring prices over the next few years proved Summers correct.
Talk about super-sized prices!
The inflation rate in the United States is expected to decrease to 2.1 percent by 2028. 2022 saw a year of exceptionally high inflation, reaching eight percent for the year. The data represents U.S. city averages. The base period was 1982-84. In economics, the inflation rate is a measurement of inflation, the rate of increase of a price index (in this case: 
On Friday’s edition of NBC’s “MTP Now,” NBC News White House Correspondent Mike Memoli stated that “the Biden team has seemed to concede that there’s nothing they’re going to be able to do to fix the inflation problem” and are trying to reframe things to a “stylistic” argument.
Not just housing, but also other core services. However, durable goods inflation is back to normal.
Some people have a very hard time understanding that we are in a massive deflationary spiral; they think that rising prices simply means it is inflation and not deflation. Then they mistake stagflation for deflation and wonder why people are spending more on less. They only see prices, not disposable income, and certainly not economic growth and unemployment.
A lethal combination of budget deficits and trade sanctions are going to be reflected in increasing price inflation for the US. And where the US goes, the rest of us follow.
Economists and historians have clearly shown that the destruction of the value and function of money by hyperinflation makes economic calculation impossible and leads to economic and social disintegration and widespread poverty. What is not so clearly understood, even by many economists, is that during periods of rapid inflation, the inability to economically calculate undermines the very nature of property and causes a withering of the human personality, which is intimately connected with property ownership. By eliminating the means of appraising and rationally allocating one’s property, hyperinflation eliminates the very basis of independent human existence and personality under a system of social cooperation. The inevitable result is the dissolution of the society of voluntary contract and its replacement by a hegemonic order in which property and personality are collectivized.