In hyperinflationary times, people are desperate to get rid of their wheelbarrows full of money.
In deflationary times, people are desperate to obtain money. Today, it is difficult to get anyone to part with a dollar. Homeowners can't make mortgage payments. Employees are taking pay cuts. Retailers are cutting prices. And jobs are scarce.
Even as monetary authorities urge banks to lend, Congress has curtailed credit by passing laws to regulate bank loans, reduce banks' proprietary trading, restrict profits from credit card fees, oversee credit-rating services and restrict the size of financial institutions. This trend is the opposite of the government's expansionary policies of the late 1990s and early 2000s, and it is deflationary. Recklessness contributed to inflation; conservatism will curtail it.
Monetary authorities have done everything they can think of to bring back inflation, and they are failing. Central banks face a problem they facilitated: There is too much doomed debt in the world.