BUT, and this is a big but, unless we deal with both the underlying needs of people and the underlying causes of inflation simultaneously we will enter a period of stagflation that will cause the world to go into a world depression that will rival the Great Depression. Why?
There are many complicated forces driving the economy. To reach a basic understanding of what is happening one needs to understand and deal with the underlying forces. First let us look at supply and demand. When supply goes down and demand goes up prices tend to rise. This is economics 101. Right now supply on two key resources is going down. One is energy and the other is food. The demand for both of those resources is going up.
The supply of food is going down due to global warming. Floods and droughts are reducing food supply around the world. The supply of energy is going down for a number of reasons including but not limited to: 1) nuclear energy is too dangerous; 2) oil is becoming ever more expensive to find and extract; 3) the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions due to global warming; 4) extracting natural gas is ruining fresh water supply; 5) coal mining is dangerous and harmful to the environment; 6) no one knows what oil producing states are going to do or what will cause them to become angry and reduce the supply of oil; and on and on and on.
Demand is increasing for food and energy, in part due to population growth and in part due to increasing prosperity in the developing world. We are not willing as either a country or as a world to manage population growth. Sex is a physiological need that "just say no" is not going to stop. Also there are strong religious beliefs against managing population growth. Further, while China was somewhat successful, China's methods were horrendous. As to increasing prosperity, the prosperity gains in the developing world have been minor and yet because the population in the countries with those gains (China and India) are dramatically increasing the demand for food and energy.
The long term solutions are obvious. We must better manage population growth and we must work to dramatically increase energy while fighting global warming. Achieving these long term solutions is very difficult and since there is so much disagreement about whether or not achieving these solutions is the best way to proceed, perhaps impossible.
In the short term we are fighting inflation by limiting the money supply. This is done by reducing the money given to workers and not spending the money we have. Austerity actually reduces the spending the money we have while those who have money just use the money to stuff their mattresses.
We have entered a world of inflation and people in the US losing prosperity. We know the short term solution is to spend more (republicans call this redistributing the wealth) and to increase the supply of food and energy. And yet the US as a nation and the world as a whole is unwilling to move to accomplish this. Hence we are headed for a "Greater Depression."
I wish I knew how to help people see this.