The Inflation Series Part 1: What Is Inflation and What Causes It? Reasoning From First Principles

This episode is the first part of a multi-part series (or season) on a topic that's quite big in the news these days, inflation.

On this episode, we do a deep dive using first principles reasoning to address what is inflation and what causes inflation. We're keeping it simple so we can create a strong foundation for the following series.

Don't worry, there are some jokes in there and some of our usual banter.

But this episode is heavy on learning. Here's some of what we cover.

1. We discuss some basic definitions.
2. We discuss why inflation is a vector and not scalar and the problem of treating it as a scalar. On this issue, we get an assist from Michael Saylor.
3. We discuss price inflation and use an excerpt from Allen Farrington's article "Inflation In A Hyperbitcoinized World" to improve our thinking.
4. Then we walk through some examples.

Other resources mentioned in this episode:

• Allen Farrington's article "The Capital Strip Mine"
• Allen Farrington and Sasha Meyers' book "Bitcoin is Venice: Essays On The Past and Future of Capitalism"
• Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu: "Michael Saylor's Masterclass in Cryptocurrency Investing and the Future of Bitcoin"