Hello.
8,999,999,999 XEM were created in 1st block AKA "NEMESIS" block and distributed to forum
users that answered the call for participation in this forum.
There was not any ICO or IPO as there were no promises made of any kind.
There is no inflation as there are no more coins created.
The nodes are earning fees only from processing transactions AKA "harvesting".
For more detailed info I suggest you to visit the official web site at
https://www.nem.ioor the offical NEM thread here
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=654845.0or the nem slack chanel at
http://nemio.slack.com/