I am far from an economist, and probably wrong about all of this, but to me the inflation concerns seem massively overblown.
Obviously printing all that money is going to cause some inflation, but the big and obvious question is how much of "inflation" is actually inflation, and how much of it is supply/demand. In almost every field demand has massively increased, while supply has massively decreased.
Again, I am far from an economist capable of answering this question, but to me the big tell is that the people that have both the knowledge to answer it, and the money on the line to really put their money where their mouth is, seem largely unconcerned.
And by that I mean the stock market. Growth stocks notoriously get pummeled during times of inflation, and growth stocks have been on a massive run the last year. Granted they've had a solid pullback the last couple days on Omicron and fed tapering news, but they've risen massively right in the face of all the inflation talks over the last few months/year. These are people with far more insight into inflation than us, willing to put their entire livelihoods on the line by continuing to invest in inflation-averse equities while all these inflation "fears" ramble on. Meanwhile we sit here on the internet and proclaim that we know better, my Christmas tree was more expensive, the end is nigh.
Look at this chart of inflation.
Just kidding, that's not a chart of inflation. That's a chart of global freight shipping costs. it just happens to look almost exactly like the "inflation" chart. Coincidence, or partial causation?
We didn't just start printing money. The bulk of it was more than a year ago. Inflation didn't escalate slowly since we started printing it. It held fairly steady, then all of the sudden shot to the moon in the very same month that shipping costs and supply shortages blew up. Coincidence? Maybe. But seems dubious.
Again, I am no economist. Maybe I'm looking at this all wrong. The people who have the most knowledge and the most to lose seem to be betting on inflation not being a major concern. The shortages seem to line up with price increases almost to the day. Of course cars are more expensive right now. You can drive by dealerships that typically have 200 cars on the lot and you're lucky if you can find 2. Obviously they are going to charge more.
Lumber I think is another great example. Everyone started panicking about inflation when lumber shot up in price. But it was just a shortage. By August of this year lumber was 32% cheaper than it was in 2018 while "inflation" was up 5% over 2018. Supply and demand. Right now everything is in demand, and we have supply of almost nothing.
Probably totally wrong, but this is my read on it.