For the first time in a long time, talk about inflation has made its way to the kitchen tables of America. For decades, monthly inflation numbers were mostly fodder for CNBC and Bloomberg addicts. Today, it seems that ordinary Americans are also paying attention.

That is as it should be, as inflation hits “normal” American in very real ways.

With inflation having been under control for most of the last 40 years, there are entire generations who don’t really know that much about it. They aren’t sure what causes it, nor are they familiar with ways to fix it.

Which brings us to a teachable moment.

Inflation can be understood, in its simplest form, as “too much money chasing too few goods.” If people get more money, but the supply of things they want to buy doesn’t increase, then the price of those things goes up. Similarly, even if people have the same amount of money, but the supply of things they want to buy goes down, the price of those things also goes up.

That works the other way as well: Prices can go down if incomes stay the same but the supply of goods goes up, or if incomes go down while the supply of goods stays the same.

We spend a lot of time in this country focusing........

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