> Every single holder of USD lost around 1-2% a year to inflation, which is essentially a backdoor tax.
That's only true of cash, and money in checkings accounts. Money deposited in savings accounts yields interest, which (on average) more than compensates for inflation.
What banks have savings accounts that yield that much interest? The average yield on a savings account that I've seen is 0.01%. I've seen some "high yield" accounts that can get you 0.03%.
If you're talking about money market accounts (where I believe you need to park a substantial amount and can't touch the money in the account for something like 10 years, but correct me if I'm wrong), you can get up to 3% yield (just beating the stated inflation of 2%).
You're right. I was just pulling numbers from memory. Still, even those examples are an order of magnitude off from keeping up with 1% to 2% inflation.
That's only true of cash, and money in checkings accounts. Money deposited in savings accounts yields interest, which (on average) more than compensates for inflation.