I still have trouble understanding the mechanics of Steem...

The design of Steem guarantees that a significant percentage of the money used to buy into it as a token will gradually seep away into the hands of both the posters on the Steem blockchain and also the Witnesses that run the blockchain - resulting in a gradual drop in value without continued investment.

In the "real" world, is this what we call inflation? A word which few people truly understand. As I understand inflation, it is simply caused by printing more money by the central banks. Who get to invest first with this new money (they created out of thin air), and as this money passes on out into the economy, each successive "investor" (user) makes a little less off their investment than the prior user due to inflation.

• Total "worth" of a currency (marketcap) divided by total amount of currency = the worth of each individual currency, be that a USD or a Steem token.
  • If we took away the market factor, and our tokens were "static" in regards to the last equation, would an investor in Steem still lose value?
    • Yes there is inflation (additional printing of tokens), but some of that inflation shows up in everyone's wallet, even on delegated SP.

I guess one reason this believer in gold and silver, likes fiat Steem better than fiat dollars is at least I gain a little bit from inflation (printing of more currency). If I hoarded a paper USD in 1916 when the US Treasury turned over our economy to the central bank, I would have seen that USD lose value and it's purchasing power only be about $0.03. The central banks have basically robbed 97% of the value. Hoarding paper currency from any central bank is a losing proposition due to inflation.

• I think hoarding Steem is perhaps less of a losing proposition, looking from the perspective of removing the change in value due to the market.

Am I missing some basic piece of the puzzle in my thinking?