i disagree that you can't have inflation without wage growth. that assumes that all currencies cannot go down at once against physical assets -- which has pretty much been the case for a very long time now. it also assumes that there hasn't been market manipulation to keep down commodities by central banks and government entities since well... forever. there's a lot of other assumptions in there, but i'll throw some stats out to make my point and leave it at that.
compare to the year 2000. that's 16 years so not exactly overnight.
median income 2000 : 42000 and change
median income 2015 : 51,939 (call it 52)
so wages went up... 23% in 15 years. care to bet how much commodities have gone up since then (hint: much, much much more and that's well off their highs). sure there's a little growth... but in comparison? not much -- admittedly some, but not much -- which only highlights that it's VERY possible to have inflation without wage growth.
and you know food prices in stores sure as heck haven't gone up only 23% in that time -- and that's the most important purchases for most people.
it's never as simple as people want to make you think.
I think a big part of this is also from 'Globalism'. A little over a year ago, I took a trip to south east asia. I spent some of my time there really observing the differences in the ways people lived as compared to the US. I also took note of the prices, and what I found was interesting, at least to me.
For electronics (or other imports, ie. camera's, phones, computers, etc) Prices were the same as here. The prices I compared were almost exact after one did the exchange rate calculations.
So people in SE Asia are paying the equivalent of $600, (or one months wages) for new high end smart phones. (they don't have the subsidized 2 year contract model) This would be like spending 2 grand on a cell phone for us here.
So the big disparity of course is in the cost of labor.
Back to your analysis, when the cost of goods and services rise, or are inflated at a rate faster than wages, to me, it seems to be moving more toward an equilibrium with some of the rest of the world.
Some other differences I noticed was not the cost of real estate, but how it was utilized. It is not uncommon to have 4-7 people living in the same space that here in the US would be occupied by 1-3 persons. This effectively reduces their individual housing cost.
Transportation, mostly by small cc motorbikes, but also small cars, that are much cheaper (and also lack airbags, anti lock brakes, and other safety features). Bicycles, rickshaws, and other inexpensive transportation.
Markets, food is equally if not a tad more expensive than here.
So my best guess is while developing nations are seeing double digit growth, developed nations are actually seeing a contraction in their economies.
This contraction is being disguised by low interest rates and inflation so as to do everything possible to avoid the appearance of deflation.