As title says, with the followup question whether your answer says anything about whether central banks have been successful (on average) in controlling inflation at a desirable level?
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Inflation is inherently tied to the time value of money. It is better to have money today than it is to have money tomorrow. Which in turn makes tomorrow’s money worth less than today’s money.
If your economic system is based on gold, there is always more gold being mined. If your economic system is based on animal pelts and crops you’re always having grain rot or be eaten by rats.
Economics is really more about psychology than it is about anything objectively real. Inflation really only ever becomes a problem when something is happening to quickly change people’s perceptions of how much stuff they have. If rats are swarming over your grain supplies you’ve got a problem, if the cost of a gallon of gas is 20 bucks you’ve got a problem, if the gold coins you got are slightly smaller than the last batch, you’ve got a problem.
As to central banks… It is tempting to view their work through the lens of what they could have done (given the benefit of hindsight) when you should be considering them through the lens of what the alternative would have been. If you think inflation is bad now for example, imagine what it would have been had Trump had direct personal control over monetary policy. Or if congress was now trying to debate what the national prime lending rate should be. You need only look to Venezuela to see the results of that kind of power.
Central banks, for all their failures, end up doing a better job than any currently available alternative.
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