[jsmcgd]

No they're real, but so are higher material costs for businesses. Everything has become more expensive and so there is less to pay for everything, including salaries.

Inflation can be caused by economic success where everybody is richer, and businesses have an incentive to increase prices and salaries to compete with other businesses doing the same.

But this isn't what we're dealing with. This inflation hasn't been caused by economic success, it's been caused by quantitative easing - money printing. And lots of it. Prices are going up because there is more money for the same (or less) amount of goods. In my opinion it may be more helpful to think about 'currency devaluation' rather than 'price increases', despite the fact these are two sides of the same coin.