Inflation is when the money being printed outstrips the value of the goods and services produced by an economy. Inflation has been a part of human life for a very long time, and it's only gotten worse since the value of the dollar is now based on "The Full Faith and Credit of the United States" (i.e., nothing.)
Because the Feds like their huge spending projects, they continually shit out paper currency, trying to make it align with the corresponding increase in the amount of goods and services (the inflation rate they try to achieve is around 2% a year. This means for very $100 in circulation, they try to print $2, because they believe that the value of goods and services produced in the USA will increase at a similar rate.)
The problem comes when the economy goes into a downturn (which is a natural part of the economic cycle) but the government still wants to shit money to fund whatever it is they do. With too many dollars in circulation and not enough goods and services to spend them on, the price will rise (supply and demand in action: the more of something there is, the less it's worth.)
Interest rates are the Feds trying to restrict the amount of money in circulation by making it more expensive to move money between banks and making it harder for normies to take out loans. Naturally, this fails to address the root of the problem (money printer going brrrr), but it beats confiscating money from bank accounts outside of tax season (which would send the better-armed part of the country into a violent tizzy.)
Normies "believe" all of this in some degree or another. They have just been conditioned to accept this as "natural" and a necessary part of the economy.
