Sometimes I think about how high price inflation can really help mask a recession. I'm not even sure what the current definition of "recession" is, since they changed it during the pandemic, but it's generally based on consecutive quarters of declining real GDP.

Since "real GDP" relies an an inflation adjustment, underreporting inflation makes real GDP look higher than it should.

I've been saying for a while that we've basically been in an economic depression since the pandemic started. I still feel pretty good about that claim.