Hi there @garyph - we recommend the FAQ page for comprehensive answers here. On the topic of steem inflation here's what they say -

https://steemit.com/faq.html

How many new tokens are generated by the blockchain?
Starting with the network's 16th hard fork in December 2016, Steem began creating new tokens at a yearly inflation rate of 9.5%. The inflation rate decreases at a rate of 0.01% every 250,000 blocks, or about 0.5% per year. The inflation will continue decreasing at this pace until the overall inflation rate reaches 0.95%. This will take about 20.5 years from the time hard fork 16 went into effect.