Inflation and Prices

At The New Yorker, 11 Feb 2023, "Does the President Have Control Over Inflation?":

On Tuesday night, President Biden used his State of the Union address, in Congress, to touch on a range of pressing issues, including infrastructure, insulin prices, Roe v. Wade, Chinese surveillance, and the war in Ukraine. But he chose, early on, to address one topic that Americans feel especially strongly about. “Here at home, inflation is coming down,” Biden said, to waves of applause. “Gas prices are coming down. Food prices are coming down.” He added, “Inflation has fallen every month for the last six months.”

I shouldn't say, because Biden's quotes are taken out of context. But it looks like President Biden does not know what inflation is: He says inflation is coming down. Then he gives two examples of prices coming down. Then he says again that inflation is coming down. The way the paragraph presents Biden's words, "inflation" and "prices" are interchangeable terms.

Maybe it is Biden who misunderstands the terminology. But three separate quotes from Biden are joined up in that paragraph, so maybe it is the author of the New Yorker article that misunderstands the terminology. Or maybe the author just dumbed things down for the rest of us. Dunno. But here's the thing: If prices are going up, that's inflation. If inflation is going up, that means prices are going up faster than before. And if inflation is coming down, prices are still going up.

Inflation coming down is not the same as prices coming down. Inflation means prices are going up. The prices can go up faster (if inflation goes up) or they can go up slower (if inflation comes down), but either way the prices are going up.

Oh, and at the Federal Reserve they talk a lot about "stable inflation". That sounds like stable prices, but it is not the same. Stable inflation means prices are going up at about the same rate (maybe 2 percent every year) every time you check. But stable prices means prices are NOT going up, and inflation is ZERO.