I agree about the negligence, but additionally it's dishonest to talk about libertarian free market policies (for or against) without acknowledging the central bank and its current mission of grossly inflating the currency supply to force most everybody to work continuously. If the middle and lower classes could benefit from increasing productivity with reduced consumer prices, and were allowed to build wealth by saving currency instead of having it eroded away and existing hand to mouth, then they'd have a fighting chance to wield some market power. As it is, they're stuck on the rent treadmill that extracts wealth upwards.
Can you say a little more or link some resources giving a solid link between central banking, inflation, and forcing people to work continuously?
It's an interesting premise and I, like others, dislike the notion that I'll have to work on a treadmill for most of my life. But I don't see the 1-3% inflation rate as more than a sort of incentive to invest in equities (which I also resent), rather than a means of keeping the lower classes away from the fruits of increased productivity.
It's wrong, of course; deflation is not a paradise and even countries which have been pushed into negative interest rates (Switzerland) you still have to work.
Figuring out how the inflation rate is even calculated involves reading through a ~100 page manual. And while the formula are pretty simple, the consequences are actually pretty confusing (eg, if the basket is re-weighted to what people are buying, how feasible is it for inflation to increase faster than wages even if price levels on most goods increase faster than inflation? Are those items naturally removed from the index?). On the other hand, the M2 monetary aggregate is actually simple - and can be used to find a rough estimate of what % of "the money" an asset entitles somebody to.
If you bought a block of gold in, say, 1990, and use the BLS inflation rate it claims you've made substantial real returns over the last 30 years which seems extremely fishy for owning a pet rock. If you calculate what % of the M2 money supply it entitles you to on the other hand its value is about the same. Slightly less, if my figures are right. Seems much more reasonable, the economy should be gaining value faster than a block of metal.
Basically the sort of people who say complain about central banks and inflation are usually the sort of people who can't understand why everyone is so excited about the inflation rate. The issue is availability of assets which are what is needed to retire or live with a sense of financial security (it is 2020, productivity is off the charts - by the numbers people shouldn't need to work full time to live comfortably). M2 deflator instead of inflation also explains circumstantial stuff like why there was a large unhappy population who voted in Trump, or why the population seems to be a bit tense about money despite apparent real growth.
The biggest contributor to income inequality and biggest burden on the masses, is the rise in rental rates, produced by rising land use restrictions, particularly in high productivity coastal metropolitan zones (New York, San Francisco and San Jose):
