Futility of Saving

Who's gonna tell you when

It's too late?

Who's gonna tell you things

Aren't so great?
--The Cars

Nice graph (taken from this article) showing the futility of saving cash as a means to beat inflation. The inference is that cash hasn't covered cost of living increases in years.

This graph is conservative, given that inflation numbers under-report price increases. Stated differently, the actual ability of saving to cope with price inflation is significantly worse than suggested here.

What corresponds to the step changes down in earnings on savings? Easy Fed monetary policy that went into overdrive with the onset of the quantitative easing regime in 2009.