Whats the Difference Between Inflation and Hyperinflation?

 Well, on the simple explanation....in a inflation period....you typically see  products/services increase at a higher rate (month by month).  An example, you mow grass at a regular rate of $10 an hour.  In a inflation period, in the second month of summer, you bump the price to $10.10 an hour, and in the third month to $10.25 an hour.  So by September, the end of your mowing season....you are charging $10.60 per hour.  

In a hyperinflation period, you start on day one of the mowing season with a fee of $10 an hour.  By the last day of the first month, your fee is now $12 an hour.  By mid-summer, if hyperinflation continued....you'd likely be charging $13 to $14 an hour.  By the end of the season, your charge would probably be between $16 and $18.

As you can imagine in your mowing empire....business slumps in the hyperinflation period and people skip a week or two on mowing jobs.  

Is there just normal, inflation and hyperinflation?  No.  The experts have five periods.  Normal, creeping inflation (which isn't much to worry about), walking inflation (where you probably need to start thinking about your job and stability), galloping inflation (things start to get rough), and hyperinflation (seeing a quarter of people dismissed from their jobs wouldn't be uncommon).

I should note that the experts have a phrase called 'stagflation' that exists, which typically means that the prices are rising while the economic situation is totally flat (unchanging). The last time we had stagflation?  In the early 1970s with the gas crisis period....where several parts of the economy were rising and several parts were worsening, and oil/gas went to outrageous prices.

Are we in a inflationary period?  In the last month, I've probably read a dozen financial pieces which suggest that we are in the begging stages of creeping inflation, and move to the walking stage inflation situation by late summer.  It's not a terrible or woeful thing....unless you skip a step and find yourself at the galloping stage or in a hyperinflation mess.