I invoice in USD and have expenses in a different currency, and while I've seen a few (~5) percent decline in the exchange rate since then, it's been nowhere near 18%.
The pandemic was worldwide, and every other central bank has been printing, too. Depending on which currency you're trading against, that could be a factor. For a while in 2021-2, non-dollar currencies were inflating even faster, so DXY actually went up even as the dollar weakened against goods and services. Even if the tables have turned and the dollar is weakening faster now, it's not like everybody else has actually reigned in their own printing.
The pandemic didn’t cause this inflation. The governments response to it did. Governments love when people blame an infectious respiratory virus for their idiotic response.
Have you tried buying a car, new or used, recently? Supply chain issues caused by the pandemic certainly caused (parts of) inflation. Then there's geopolitics (energy/oil, food/wheat), also not helping with inflation.
Supply-driven inflation looks to be the cause of at least half the run-up:
Good point about local inflation. Both the World Bank and my gov't claim 4% from 3.22 to 3.24 (or ~2% a year, which would explain why I hadn't noticed)
So 5+4 = 9% imputed inflation for USD since 2022?
(or no more than 5% in 2022 if it's been steady ... but still time to bump my rates; thanks you all for convincing me to go through this exercise!)
It's really funny math, based solely on the idea I borrow enough with floating interest rates, pegged to treasuries. <sarcasm>but it confirms I am suffering, therefore it is correct</sarcasm>
