MNb,   

I don't think it's really possible for anyone here to be prejudiced about chess players.  Bias, yes.  Prejudice, difficult.  Prejudice means to judge someone or some group without an real prior knowledge of them.  Bias is based on some knowledge.  Hopefully, we're all biased.  That is, we have opinions based on information.  It's what makes discussions so interesting and fruitful!   

(I know, you meant the comment humorously.)

Channel 97 is/was ICC's politics channel.  It may not exist anymore because its denizens kept breaking ICC's rules about being polite to its membership.

Well, I'm curious about the basis of your disagreement with alumbrado about the definition of inflation.  Is it a semantic issue, or something fundamental you don't agree upon?  (e.g., semantic disagreement would be something like arguing over whether to call it inflation or deflation).

In my rambling below, I'm not trying to support a particular conclusion regarding your argument, but rather to suggest an analogy (that has been made previously) which might be worth discussing.

For students grade inflation devalues one's grades (yesterday's C had been replaced by today's B).  For chessplayers rating inflation (not sure what the concensus is on its existence) would similarly devalue one's rating.  Probably little disagreement here with either the analogy or the conclusions.

College degrees have been losing value steadily (I think there is no problem with concensus here).  As the supply of students achieving these degrees goes up the degree requirements sought by prospective employers go up correspondingly.  This sounds like inflation to me.

Drawing an analogy between GM titles and college degrees seems natural enough.  If this analogy is a good one, then saying that GM titles have been losing value steadily because more chessplayers are acheiving them seems like a logical conclusion.  But is the analogy really appropriate?  

The 'economic framework' (caveat: I have NO idea what I'm talking about) for the devaluing of student degrees has:
degrees (supply is increased)
jobs (demand is fixed, or at least increasing much more slowly)
result: degrees decrease in value.

The 'economic framework' for the devaluing of GM titles has:
GM titles (supply is increased)
But where's the demand side?

The devaluing of the GM title is a point of contention in the Hard enough to be GM... thread.  Is this title devaluing an example of inflation?  Is it a demonstable problem (as opposed to conjecture)?

Feel free to poke holes in my arguments - or rip the whole thing to shreds for that matter.  I'd like to see some activity in this thread - there is great potential for some interesting arguments here!