They take the CPI and then combine it with the M2 money supply. Is that enough to prove that they didn't print a lot of money?
First of all cpis are never that reliable, because they use a basket of selected goods, and there’s an interest to make them seem lower than they really are.
We can still use these numbers tho:
(Units are in Billions)
In January 2020 the „real“ m2 was 5954, in May 2022 it already reached 7463. Which gives us an increase of approximately 25% in just a little more than 2 years. This is 1/4th of all the real m2 usd ever in existence. If your income and/or life savings didn’t increase by atleast 25% in the same period you will be at an disadvantage, until you can catch up to these numbers, and many won’t ever be able to. And don’t forget older people potentially saved up money since generations, this is a loss of time forever. A big part of their working life was being spent working for free now.
If we go to may 2008 3583, till now. The increase is 108% already.
If we compare it to the regular m2 now. In January 2020 15401, till May 2022 21754. An increase of 41% in just a little over 2 years. And from may 2008 7711, till now. An increase of 182%.
The consequences of these choices are still into effect and didn’t fully play out yet, even if money printing would slow down. If your income and/ or life savings didn’t grow in a similar way during this time period, you will be affected by this. Money supply isn’t direct inflation, but it has long term consequences that will play out in a more delayed way(because in fiat money concentrates more and more heavily at the top, so it takes some time until regular people see heavy inflation because more money flows down, but we already saw how much richer fiat whales got during heavy money printing and this one of the causations, it’s engraved into the system, the fate is set, no work is required for this).
It proves the opposite, they printed a lot. This line should be flat, if they didn’t print much. It’s important here to choose a big time horizon, when looking at the statistic.