As I understand it (and correct me if I'm wrong), prices in the United States during the Great Depression fell because the money people had put into banks and loans was defaulted/wiped off the books. To the average person running a business, they could not sell their products at the same price because their consumers lacked the funds to pay those prices. This meant that the value of the dollar went up because there was a cut in the supply of money (again, please correct me). This was a drop in demand because people didn't have diddly squat to their name, different from the money printing causing mass inflation in say Weimar Germany.
I've noticed in recent days that people aren't buying as much stuff as they used to. We've maintained targeted inflation but wages haven't risen enough to accommodate, so there's less demand for consumer goods than there once was. There's also a huge amount of debt owed by everyone that I would think will need correction at some point. The stock market also seems to be completely gamified at this point and is increasingly detached from the performance of the industry it's supposed to represent (sorry for being subjective, that's why I'm asking here). There's also much less money going between working class people and we're paying more money to fewer companies. Does any of this point to deflation in the near future?
Rising gas prices probably also means that working class people physically won't be able to make as much money (like think truckers and farmers).
(I assume leaving the gold standard also changes the calculus a lot)
Are there any signs of large-scale deflation in the near future?
byu/Orangutanion inAskEconomics
Posted by Orangutanion
1 Comment
Deflation in the near future? The Fed is desperate to get back to even close to 2%.