there is no "natural cause" of an increase in the money supply. it's a decision made by a bureaucrat because.....who knows, really. it could be anything. a bribe. an academic policy. an electoral mandate. the point is that it's a deliberate decision made by a human, not some kind of naturalistic phenomena. it could be applied in a way that makes sense, or in a way that doesn't make sense - and consequently be either beneficial or disastrous.
now, it's reasonable to speak of things happening as a result of monetary policy. from where i'm sitting, i think debt is artificial, and so long as we have money at all (i am opposed to currency on a conceptual level, but i live in reality) we should be controlling how much we have centrally. simple demographic pressures are enough of a justification. as the population increases, the supply must increase as well. history teaches me that the thing we want to avoid at all costs is shortages, not surpluses.
but these decisions have an effect. that's why they're done. and one of them is possibly inflation, under the kinds of conditions greg points out.
that doesn't mean increasing the money supply will always turn us into weimar republic germany. it's not a single cause. but actions have effects. it's really head-scratching to deny that, then argue that conscious, human-produced actions have easily defined causes.
so, yes, boosting the money supply is a tool that should be used under the right circumstances, and we shouldn't allow people to scare us into thinking otherwise. but we also have to understand that it can be inflationary.
and we certainly can't be thinking that we're just automatons defined by pressures in the global economy, either.
and then there's the stuff about reducing excess aggregate demand by increasing taxes, which is just frightening.
so, venezuela has an excess demand for milk and butter, driving street protests. if you just decrease the demand (by increasing taxes and reducing imports), then the demand will decrease and inflation will go down.
brilliant!