Don't worry about inflation. You probably had in mind the 1920 inflation in Germany, when money was printed like mad. But trading does normally not cause inflation. Your money won't lose its value. Inflation is caused by a demand/supply imbalance that can be completely unrelated to the money circulating in the financial market.

The financial market can also not be converted to a zero-sum game. Otherwise you had to freeze the exchange rates and prices of all financial assets, which is unrealistic. If the banks and fonds should have been left to die in 2009 is another matter. But I think we did not really have that choice.

As to the question how much money you need, you should have about 20000 EUR in your account for receiving a monthly income in the EUR 1000..2000 range. But this is preliminary, as we're still working on the trade algorithms. It's surprisingly complex to calculate the real income from the income gained in the simulation.