@bi4smooth
Nice thoughtful response! What a pleasant change from what gets posted here so often 🙂 Thank you!
Yes, I agree with you - in the US economy there are significant inflationary signs. Will be very interesting to see if this actually results in inflation though - as there have been a lot of these signs over the years... and still nothing. It should, don't get me wrong! But, so far... nada.
There are a lot of countries in Europe which have used quantitative easing (yeah I know about that phrase being made up since 2008 - printing money!) - also showing little to no inflation, yet lots and lots of inflationary pressures. It's just that the deflationary pressures are greater - still. Although very hard to quantify!
BTW - not to nit pick, but Buffett actually said he was seeing inflation in what his businesses were doing... everything was costing more (was at his last Annual Report for Berkshire Hathaway...). Not that he was expecting more inflation. I have a lot of time for that man (obviously... super successful!) and so I tend to make sure I don't 'read between the lines' with him, as he's normally super precise in what he's saying. I think he was probably making a more painful comment that inflation isn't measured very well if lots of the things that people buy are getting more expensive, but that's not showing in the inflationary numbers (something I would tend to agree with... inflationary numbers being rather political beasts and tied to so much related to how the government functions!).