There wasn't any significant inflation even at zero interest rates until 2019. It was sometimes negative.

That isn’t true at all. The fed was playing funky games with how they were measuring inflation, sure, but all of us living in the real world definitely could tell prices were rising.

What's funny about the crank websites like Shadowstats that claim to give the real inflation rate is, they never raise their prices.

If it was true that the stats were fake, you could get rich in the bond market with TIPS arbitrage, so why not try it?

Bond rates had been less than inflation for a long time before interest rates rose. But yes, a lot of people made money getting cheap loans with interest rates below or close to inflation. It’s one of the main reasons we are in our current mess.