The Fed and banks create new money and hand it to borrowers first. By the time that money reaches your paycheck or savings account, prices have already adjusted upward. You paid the inflation tax. The banks booked the gains.
Richard Cantillon identified this mechanism in the 1730s. New money does not spread evenly across an economy like water filling a bathtub. It flows through specific channels, enriching whoever receives it first before prices rise, then destroying purchasing power for everyone downstream.
Look at post-2008 numbers. The Federal Reserve expanded its balance sheet from roughly $900 billion in 2008 to $4.5 trillion by 2015. The S&P 500 tripled. Real wages for median workers barely moved. Wall Street firms and Treasury-connected primary dealers received the new money at near-zero rates, bought assets, and watched those assets inflate in price. Your grocery bill followed later.
The Federal Reserve acts as a wealth-transfer mechanism, supposedly creating stability and employment.
This is a political outcome, not a market outcome. Governments grant the Fed its monopoly on money creation. Political connections determine who borrows first, cheapest, and largest. The system produces inequality by design, then politicians blame the market for the results.