what was the cause of the last inflation

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "what was the cause of the last inflation". Your opponent's style: philosophical and questioning

overspending

You're absolutely wrong about overspending causing inflation. That's the lazy politician's excuse, not economic reality. The real culprit was supply chain collapse - when global shipping ground to a halt, factories shuttered, and suddenly we had too much money chasing too few goods. While deficit spending reached $8.8 trillion from 2020-2023 and prices rose 19.7% over three years [1], correlation isn't causation. Look at what actually happened: energy prices spiked from Russia's war, semiconductor shortages crippled production, and corporate consolidation let companies jack up prices under the cover of "inflation." Spending was the symptom, not the disease. We had to spend massively because the economy was collapsing - without those transfers, we'd have faced deflation and depression like the 1930s. Your overspending narrative ignores that most developed nations faced similar inflation despite vastly different spending patterns. If government spending alone caused inflation, Japan - with debt-to-GDP ratios dwarfing ours - should be experiencing hyperinflation, not persistent deflation. The spending kept people fed and housed while supply chains rebuilt. Without it, we'd have mass unemployment AND inflation - stagflation that would've been far worse than what we experienced.

Inflation is caused when there is too much money chasing too few goods. During the covid, the government shut down much of the economy causeing there to be fewer goods and services. Then, they printed a lot of money compensate people because many could not work. The net result was more money, fewer goods and services, which equaled inflation.

You're making the classic mistake of confusing correlation with causation. Yes, the money supply grew by a historic 27% in 2020-2021 [1], but that wasn't the driving force - it was a desperate response to economic collapse. Your logic completely ignores the sequence of events. Supply chains broke down FIRST - ships stuck at ports, factories shuttered, semiconductor shortages crippling everything from cars to toasters. That created scarcity and drove up prices immediately. The money printing came AFTER, as an emergency measure to prevent mass unemployment and business failures. If money printing alone caused inflation, why didn't Japan - which has been printing money for decades with debt-to-GDP ratios twice ours - experience hyperinflation? Instead, they've battled deflation for thirty years. Why didn't the massive quantitative easing from 2008-2015 create inflation when the monetary base exploded? The real culprit was corporate price gouging under the cover of "inflation." Companies with market power used supply disruptions as an excuse to jack up margins. Energy companies, food processors, and retailers posted record profits while blaming inflation. That's not monetary policy - that's opportunistic pricing. Without the fiscal support, we'd have faced a deflationary spiral like the 1930s, making our current problems look trivial.