It wasn't and you're mischaracterizing. You haven't seen my comments from last year. Without repeating the arguments, the Economist wrote an article about why measuring inflation is complex and you can't just look at CPI: https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2017/09/05/...
Point is that HN was so gung-ho about covid stimulus package, that any comment that pointed out inflation issues that we're going to have in the future were ridiculed. And, now here we are.
And we're right back to the secret inflation theory that your parent referenced. The main point of contention regarding the current numbers is that it's too early to know where we are, that is, to know whether the inflation we've seen this year is transient.
There was a steady stream of inflation scaremongering throughout the Obama years which never made economic sense, and of course never came to fruition. I heard the same arguments about it then: "inflation is here, it's just complex and the government is hiding it".
Of course you could be right this time, but it also shouldn't surprise you that an attempt to support this prediction by rehashing the old secret inflation theory attracts a few eye-rolls.
Your article identifies issues with Britain's inflation basket that caused them to overestimate inflation by 0.6% a year, and you are using it as an argument that we underestimated inflation by >15%.
That is the bottom line, I'll let other readers draw their conclusions about what is reasonable.
Point is that HN was so gung-ho about covid stimulus package, that any comment that pointed out inflation issues that we're going to have in the future were ridiculed. And, now here we are.