ET members can't agree on whether we will see inflation or deflation in the coming years.
You would think that it's easy to guess if there will be inflation or deflation and only guessing the rate would be difficult, but that doesn't seem to be the case, media says deflation deflation deflation
In my opinion inflation inflation and even more inflation, regardless of house prices falling or not.
I don't get where most people get the idea that job losses will amount to deflation, it's not necessarily true, actually in most cases through out history it has been the opposite.
Bad economic conditions will usually cause inflation, not only because and not only if the gov or central bank starts printing more money, but also because most businesses will not be able to operate under the hard economic conditions and will fail, leaving a smaller number of businesses that offer the services or products they used to offer, this spells monopoly and monopoly means the owner of the monopoly controls prices.
Another condition that can cause inflation in a specific currency (say in USDs) is when people do less and less business in that currency, such cases start to appear under bad economic conditions.
Anyhow in my opinion even if there is deflation right now, we will see double digit inflation rates by the end of 2010
plus don't forget that the inflation rate is at about 6% right now that means in say 7 years
(1.06)^7=1.5036
that means the price of things will go up by about 50% in just 7 years
now if we see inflation rates of about 17% for 7 years
(1.17)^7=3.0012
the price of products and services will go up by about 300% in that time frame
You would think that it's easy to guess if there will be inflation or deflation and only guessing the rate would be difficult, but that doesn't seem to be the case, media says deflation deflation deflation
In my opinion inflation inflation and even more inflation, regardless of house prices falling or not.
I don't get where most people get the idea that job losses will amount to deflation, it's not necessarily true, actually in most cases through out history it has been the opposite.
Bad economic conditions will usually cause inflation, not only because and not only if the gov or central bank starts printing more money, but also because most businesses will not be able to operate under the hard economic conditions and will fail, leaving a smaller number of businesses that offer the services or products they used to offer, this spells monopoly and monopoly means the owner of the monopoly controls prices.
Another condition that can cause inflation in a specific currency (say in USDs) is when people do less and less business in that currency, such cases start to appear under bad economic conditions.
Anyhow in my opinion even if there is deflation right now, we will see double digit inflation rates by the end of 2010
plus don't forget that the inflation rate is at about 6% right now that means in say 7 years
(1.06)^7=1.5036
that means the price of things will go up by about 50% in just 7 years
now if we see inflation rates of about 17% for 7 years
(1.17)^7=3.0012
the price of products and services will go up by about 300% in that time frame