Originally Posted by
43Inches
No doubt, the US especially is printing money and giving it away. The national debt figure has just been blown away by Trump and now Biden and is massive compared with the Obama days where they tried to block supply because of debt. Massive Covid stimulus on the back of GFC stimulus, it's starting to bite now and the economy has become used to living with high stimulus input. Add the stupid US/China Trade war and yes, the next few years will see US inflation go bonkers unless something drastic happens.
Australia has managed to remain almost fiscally sensible in all this, that does not mean we are immune, but much better off at a baseline. Still actual inflation, when you take into account all the things mentioned is through the roof. CPI is a silly measure of inflation as the government uses the supermarkets to cap basic item prices here so the number means very little. Ever wondered why milk stays $1 a litre? Bread $2 a loaf... so on, if inflation had affected those goods they should now be at least double those numbers and maybe significantly more.
Australia also has phenomenal national savings in the form of Superannuation which is now close to 200% of GDP with the SG pool expected to grow to at least eight trillion dollars in the next 10 years, projected GDP will put that at approximately 2.6T which will mean the super pool will be somewhere between 300-400% of Annual GDP - this provides a cushioning effect when our debt is considered which is minuscule by world standards (except for the sovereign wealth fund countries like Norway).
It should also be noted that a sizeable amount of US Debt is actually based on US Bonds owned by Americans I believe, although I may be wrong on that.
Don't forget that Clinton got debt to a manageable level and produced surpluses, then "W" got in and created more debt than all 41 previous presidents.