Beef is an internationally traded commodity, one of Argentina’s historically main exports, to give one example. The grain you feed cattle is a commodity too. To think that the local burger joint is isolated of the world is naive. We just can’t have a devalued dollar for a long time and not expect inflation at home
I know that, and, as I said, contribution of all traded commodities to the retail price of a $3 burger is tiny. You can’t expect the burger to appreciate at the same rate as beef and flour.
As you can see it’s not constant as you assumed in your prior reply. And more importantly, the monetary base is the narrowest definition of money. The recent Fed moves are inflating M1, and especially M2 and M3.
It is practically constant since last summer. In the mean time, euro went from 1.35 to 1.55 and gold went from 650 to 1000. Expanding monetary base is clearly not responsible for that.
The only thing the Fed can “print” is monetary base. M1 is more or less constant too. M2 and M3 involve a lot of double counting. For example, a big piece of M2 is actually commercial bonds and even mortgage-backed securities. They can grow or contract pretty much on their own, Fed, no Fed, gold standard, etc. M2 is up 4% since last summer, and half of that is “retail money market funds” (individual investors selling stocks and buying bonds).
