I agree. Both suppress wage inflation. Some things, things that are capital intensive like cars and houses, have inflated at incrediable levels. So have things that demand highly skilled labor like medical costs. Those things show an increasingly worhtless dollar. Other things, that are made by unskilled labor and don't use a lot of expensive raw materials to produce, are absurdly cheap- the labor to make them are slaves in the PRC.
Inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. With easy to make goods, there are so many now due to productivity increases that there is NO inflation in those items. But the inflation is there. It will be amplified if the dollar loses value, because other countries like to hold dollars. This allowed the fed to dump in a lot of new dollars, knowing that there was a demand for them as a reserve currency. If that ever stops, if those nations start dumping dollars, it will casue an inflationary collapse of the dollar like we have never seen in America.
That's true, but for the consumer the cost increases have been softened by the lower interest rates. I really like what you wrote about there basically being two inflation rates (in reality, not in reporting).