I think an awful lot of people have confused themselves into thinking that inflation is this giant awful thing that totally distorts their view of money.
2022 was less than one year ago, and the average inflation rate for the past year was like 3%. Small and normal. This note here about using 2022 dollars is normal and reasonable.
I hope this doesn't come off as condescending, but I think you are missing the distinction between real and nominal value. if I just say "$200k" without qualification, that is a nominal value. if I associate that nominal value with an instant in time (a whole year can be a narrow enough window when inflation is reasonably low), it becomes a real value. when I say you would have $200k in 2020 dollars in forty years, inflation is already taken into account. if a dollar is worth half as much in 2060, I'm saying you would have $400k in 2060.
you are right that inflation is a huge unknown. if inflation goes up massively without a corresponding increase in nominal returns (unlikely, but possible), it would make that 6% figure incorrect. in this case, you would have less than $200k 2020 dollars in 2060, but the real value of a 2020 dollar would not have changed.
as a concrete example, suppose I own a three shares of microsoft stock and you have a brand new ipad air. both are worth about $600 today. if I offered to trade you my microsoft stock for the air, you might be happy to do so if you don't have any use for the ipad. if the fed prints trillions of dollars overnight causing the value to collapse, it doesn't change the fact that my three MSFT shares have roughly the same real value as the ipad. "2020 dollars" is just a slightly more abstract way of describing this dynamic.
Inflation is a measure of the value of Money not other things.
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