DM central bankers are looking for inflation.

But no matter how hard they try, they can't find any.

And that right there is throwing a monkey wrench in the whole “it's time to roll back crisis-era policies” narrative.

Of course we all know that's absurd. There's plenty of inflation and indeed it's showing up in all the places you'd expect it to show up given how policymakers have gone about reflating the global economy.

Indeed, they're starting to realize what they've done, which is why every DM central banker you care to listen to was, until last week anyway, ready to “look through” purportedly “transitory” weakness in the incoming inflation data.

For those interested in a one-chart visual summary of what Goldman calls “the theory of inflation relatively”, have a look:

There you go: “lost” real economy inflation, meet “found” asset price inflation.