Your dollar in 1971
You were taught that prices go up. That's not quite right. The dollar gets smaller — and so does your time. Watch.
Notice the gold row barely shrinks. Houses haven't gotten more expensive. Eggs haven't gotten more expensive. Your dollar is just buying less of everything that's actually scarce — and gold is the one row that proves it.
If you're not getting a raise of at least 4% every year, you're getting poorer. Not metaphorically. Literally. The U.S. dollar has lost an average of 3.9% of its purchasing power per year since 1971 — and that's the official number. If your salary went up 3% last year and inflation was 4%, you took a pay cut while your bank statement said otherwise. The same is true of your savings account. The same is true of cash in a “high-yield” account paying less than CPI. The dollar has only one job — hold value over time — and it has failed at that job every single year for over fifty years.
Inflation isn't prices going up. It's the dollar going down. The chart above is what that looks like. The number you need to clear is 4%.