The pie has nothing to do with it.

The tide is rising and most ships are sinking. Productivity in the last 40 years has skyrocketed. The gains have overwhelmingly gone to a tiny minority while everyone else has seen rent, food, education, and more go up dramatically faster than wages. This has accelerated in the last 15 years and has destroyed any faith in the social contract.

Have you noticed the massive growth in government? You're paying for it, one way or another.

Inflation is caused by the government via deficit spending. It's another tax on you.

Inflation isn't the problem. Corporate consolidation, collusion, price fixing, and market capture are the problems.

In nearly every field where there used to be 10-20 competitors there are 2-4 and they're not doing much "competing" any more. They're using consultants and third parties to share data and fix prices, they're buying up the entire supply and dividing areas so they have monopolies.

Note how during the COVID "inflation" corporate profits soared faster than inflation.

> In nearly every field where there used to be 10-20 competitors there are 2-4 and they're not doing much "competing" any more.

I'm old, and I've heard that my entire life. Something's wrong with your assessment.

The pie isn't always growing and the pie isn't always static. There are times where either can happen. I think people are just feeling that we are entering a period where the pie will be stagnant for a while. In the short term the world might be a zero sum game.