Rising prices are "a policy"

"The most important thing to remember is that inflation is not an act of God, that inflation is not a catastrophe of the elements or a disease that comes like the plague. Inflation is a policy." 

          ~ Ludwig Von Mises, Economic Policy, p. 72

"... the printing presses were set in motion. Inflation ha[s] the great advantage of evoking an appearance of economic prosperity and of increase in wealth, of falsifying calculations made in terms of money, and so of concealing the consumption of capital. Inflation g[ives] rise to the pseudo-profits of the entrepreneur and capitalist which c[an] be treated as income and have specially heavy taxes imposed upon them, without the public at large -- or often even the actual taxpayers themselves -- seeing that portions of capital were thus being taxed away. Inflation ma[kes] it possible to divert the fury of the people to 'speculators' and 'profiteers'. Thus it prove[s] itself an excellent psychological resource of destructive [government] policy.”

          ~ Ludwig Von Mises, The Theory of Money & Credit

.