If you want a deeper dive into this question, check out - Murray Rothbard, [The Mystery of Banking](https://mises.org/library/book/mystery-banking); or - Ludwig von Mises, [The Theory of Money and Credit](https://mises.org/library/book/theory-money-and-credit)

So “prices going up” retains a correlation to inflation but inflation is not the causation of increased prices? Debasement (or otherwise people agreeing XYZ widget is worth more)?

Think of it this way: every new dollar printed makes existing dollars less valuable (inflation), so eventually it takes more dollars to buy the same stuff as before (increased prices). Another major aspect of inflation is artificial credit expansion by the fractional reserve banking system--which increases massively when the Fed lowers interest rate targets. There's a great video series by Mike Maloney on YouTube called The Hidden Secrets of Money (just skip the one on Hedera hashgraph). 🤙