I would also add, that it wasn't a second or two.

It was a slow process, so hard to notice. Like you slowly warm the water of the frog, so it doesn't notice, and you can cook it.

At the beginning paper money was convertable to gold. So in principle you were trading with paper gold. It has also issues, but at least it was connected to something valueable.

Then it slowly progressed to the thing we have today.

This happened many time in history, even when they were using gold coins

The government could collect back all the coins, and decrease the gold content, to inflate money, and then give back the new coins.

So the inflation is an old problem of people, and an old tool of the government.