When Will Inflation Really Hit Us?

My guess as well. First we will see about $15-30 trillion in additional asset write downs. Slowly, but inevitably, just like Japan over the last 2 decades.

The only other way out, is hyperinflation, which is a completely different phenomenon than inflation in a fractional reserve system. They're not just one being the other, just bigger. In a fractional reserve system, inflation requires credit growth, as 90-99% of the actual demand creating money is credit, not base money. In hyperinflation, credit does no longer exists, since noone will lend in a currency that is disappearing before their very eyes. So, while the Fed and government can create hyperinflation any time, by just printing up a few quadrillions to monetize newly created debt, they can't create inflation until the debt load has declined to a level where it's servicing is affordable again, which we're still trillions upon trillions, and years or decades, away from.

That being said, attempts at creating inflation, or minimizing the rate of deflation, by Fed printing is just as distortionary even without the Fed achieving any kind of inflation in absolute terms. It still amounts to transferring wealth away from the productive economy in the direction of banks and governments. So even as the total money + credit supply is shrinking, a larger and larger share is being transferred to the banking system, which in turn invests them in "safe" government bonds, in the process empowering the very two exact sectors that pose the biggest threat to Americans' welfare and prosperity, while impoverishing everyone else.