The Cantillon Letter
Monetary truth. Understand it first.
Tools · Companion to Issue 10

Inflation isn't one number.

Eight sectors. Two units. One picture. Sectoral price changes since 2015, measured in dollars and in Bitcoin.

Cumulative price change by sector In US dollars · since 2015

Stocks have outpaced housing. Wages have lagged everything. Technology has fallen alone.

The Full Argument

Each sector tells a different story. Here's where they're developed.

Stocks
Asset prices have outpaced everything else. The K-shaped reality: those who held assets did not experience the same economy as those who earned wages. Read Issue 25 →
Education
Tuition has tripled in inflation-adjusted terms since 1980. The story isn't student loans — it's what happens when government prints the money to buy the product. Read Issue 17 →
Healthcare
The same pattern at a different scale. Third-party payment systems and what happens when the patient never sees the bill. Read Issue 18 →
Housing
Housing unaffordability is a monetary phenomenon, not a supply problem. Who got cheap capital first, and what they bought with it. Read Issue 15 →
Food
The most universally felt sector. What people eat, what they pay for it, and what that says about how monetary policy reaches the kitchen table. Read Issue 19 →
Wages
Median real wages have been roughly flat while assets have exploded. The gap between what people earn and what they need to buy is the lived experience of monetary debasement. Read Issue 21 →
Technology
The lone deflator. Technology is inherently deflationary, and that creates a problem for systems that depend on growth to function. Read Issue 3 →