it's all value-added now in the first world, tweaked to commodification. raw materials are getting more expensive, sure but it's the chain reaction on legions of middlemen jacking up their prices, genteely known as passing on costs to the customer, that really amplifies inflation.
new services are being dreamed up everyday to invent new markets, like new diseases being dreamt up to justify peddling more pharma to gulled idiots.

The power of knowledge is in mortal combat with the knowledge of power. It really is that simple... That's the Edenic apple we are all munching on.