Prices have been accelerating so fast recently that it's fair to ask that question: are we headed for hyperinflation?

That's when "money" is being created so wantonly that advertised prices last only for a few hours, at most. In Weimar Germany in 1923 people had to wheel their wages home in a barrow - and were wise to spend it on the way, for by tomorrow it would be almost worthless. In 1946 the Hungarians solved the wheelbarrow problem by printing more zeros after the "1", on single bits of paper - but the problem was the same, total loss of control.

Under Robert Mugabe's Marxist government the Zimbabwe currency did the same more recently, with Z$500,000,000 notes in circulation.

The cause of this absurd and ruinous phenomenon is explained at length in this Mises video by Prof. Steve Hanke, and the short version is that government spending is supported to only a small degree by real loans and collected taxes, with most of it being furnished by fiat. That only creates more obligations, which must be financed by more fiat money, and we're off to the races. Currently the FedGov spend is about 36% more than its revenue, so it's getting dangerously close. Prof Hanke does not of course prescribe higher taxes, but reduced spending instead.

He also had a fix, which he has actually implemented - in Bulgaria, in the 1990s. It had immediate effect, and was for the government to declare that the local currency was in future freely convertible with a stable one - in that case, the Deutschmark. The hyperinflation came to a screeching halt.

It would work better yet if the standard were gold; but that would remove all the FedGov's ability to buy votes with money it doesn't have, so is DoA in D.C. (It would also raise the dollar price of gold by a few orders of magnitude )

My answer to the question in the title above is: probably not, or not yet; but no guarantee comes with that opinion. The profligate FedGov is heading that way and unless it is arrested, hyperinflation will result. It's a matter of time. Meanwhile, regular inflation is in place, and it's deadly.

It's deadly first because it enables government to spend more than it has (from taxes, loans etc) on projects that generate votes, and hence raise its popularity and prolong its own miserable existence.

It's deadly secondly because when the resultant rise in prices comes, the public blames merchants rather than the government that actually caused it. The ill-will poisons market activity.

It's deadly thirdly because in effect it reduces wages; workers may get the same number of "dollars" but they will buy less. Any wage cuts should be made openly and honestly and this trick is neither.

It's deadly fourthly because it completely skews everyone's decisions about saving and investing. Those who understand that money will buy less tomorrow than it does today will spend it on real goods, whereas if they anticipate a slight fall in prices (that's what would happen if money were honest and outside government control) they would do the opposite and save more. "Saving" is identical to investment, and investment is what generates economic growth and so higher standards of living. So inflation (like taxes) drags down everyone's prosperity.

It's deadly fifthly because it starves those on a fixed income; typically, oldsters who made provision for their retirement by buying a pension plan which guarantees a stated amount. Inflation reduces the purchasing power of that sum, and the beneficiary cannot even negotiate an increase in its nominal size. Now, it may not have been the intent of the inflaters to arrange mass euthanasia along the lines of Aktion T-4, but that's the effect and they are responsible.

These five are the actual effects of garden-variety inflation, visible right now. If it should accelerate to the hyper kind, take everything here and square it.