I'm saying the inflation will show up over a long period of time, not in the form of 7% or 10% annualized traditional consumer inflation (eg in milk prices). We don't have enough economic / population growth to press the demand line enough to spur high inflation, and our debt maintenance requirements are perpetually throwing cold water on large amounts of loose money entering the economy (it absorbs extraordinary sums of capital that would otherwise be sloshing around, impacting the real economy; it puts all that capital into a deep freeze; I refer to it as an economic heat death, which Japan has experienced due to their debt robbing their economy of dynamism).

We'll likely see it show up aggressively in asset inflation. Every dollar the Fed puts toward artificially propping up asset prices, is going to gradually leak inflation into the economy as asset holders unlock those assets and convert them into dollars that touch the real economy. Some might ask: if that's true, why isn't consumer inflation far higher (eg in the post great recession era); consider that inflation might be even lower if they didn't do it. That's a very difficult speculation to make either direction, the fact is the best we can do is guess on the what-ifs (would inflation be that much lower otherwise). If the Fed props up the housing market (0% interest rates, buying junk mortgages to take them off the market to prop up values, keeping the lenders solvent, etc), enabling a homeowner to take out a big home equity line at cheap rates and then inject that cash into the real economy, we get some little jolt of inflation from it. The Fed helping to prop up the stock market, enabling millions of people to extract more value out of the market at higher prices, shoots inflation into the economy to the extent that it's abnormal to what would otherwise exist in the absence of the Fed actions. The interesting question is: how low would inflation be without that happening (now and in the recent past)?

The first paragraph clarifies my point and I believe we are largely in agreement. The difference I see in our views is that I don't consider asset price increase without CPI increases as inflation -- it is a materially different beast (it doesn't increase commodity prices or depress buying power of wage earners for day-to-day needs.)

Your second paragraph is exactly what I meant by wealth inequality. I don't think rich people buying things will increase CPI, but it does impact positional goods like college and real estate.

So far, the Fed has been providing liquidity to MBS but not enough to prevent real mortgage rates from _rising_ currently. I believe unemployment will remain high enough for long enough to stave off a housing price increase.

The sell-off of equities as boomers retire and live off their stock portfolios is also something to consider as counterbalancing equity prices over the medium to long-term.

I believe the prevailing belief is that we'd be in a deflationary period without Fed intervention.