Contrary to popular and journalistic belief, inflation is not caused by rapid economic growth. Rather, as the analysis just offered shows, unhealthy apparent growth, in which resources are misallocated to economically unjustified projects, is an early effect of inflationary policy, an effect which generally precedes the wage/price spiral resulting from the same policy. To construe the earlier effect as a cause of the later effect is to commit the basic logical fallacy, post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this).

		The falling value of the currency is blamed on unpatriotic citizens, unfriendly foreign banks, and speculators in foreign currencies.
		Depression effects are attributed to the "irrational panic" of buyers and sellers, to a loss of consumer confidence, or to drought and natural disasters.
		The business cycle as a whole is attributed either to the "endogenous" inherent instability of the (supposedly) free market or to "exogenous" causes such as periodic solar sunspot activity.