Did you read my post at all? Did you read the part where I stated that it wouldn't matter for necessary items like food?
I think I was mainly talking about a shorter time than your 5 years as well...
If you can hold off buying something that's would last a longer time like 5 or 10 years and the value is more significant than a hundred bucks... you would definitely wait longer to buy it when it's in constant deflation.
Of course deflation doesn't end economy, economy is basically a depiction of the workings of a certain social group, whether it's a company, or a country.... economy doesn't 'end'... there will always be an economy.
But an enduring deflation together with a stagnating economy will be severely affecting social workings and therefore 'the economy' in a very bad way. If it's a growing economy it's not so much a problem, like in your example of the computer/chip markets. The stagnating bit will mean joblessness, underpayments, etcetcetc... I seriously doubt that you can debunk that line of thought...
As far as I can tell, the key to the anti-deflation argument is that people will delay purchasing because the dollar will be worth more later, therefore will represent a better value proposition vs purchasing now. I believe this is pretty clearly false -- and not just for necessities (I did list non-necessities btw). With a constant deflation, there will always be a better value by waiting, so if it were true that people wouldn't spend now, they would delay for X amount of time, but in X amount of time, they could wait an additional X amount of time to get an even better value. Followed to its logical conclusion, people would never spend on non-necessities. The entire idea of this just seems so silly to me because it seems so obviously false just based on human behavior we see right now.
If this argument were true, then people would always be looking to optimize the ROI of their purchases without respect to how quickly they can acquire their goods or services that they pay for. So why is it then that people:
*) pay a premium for faster shipping
*) buy almost any form of technology
*) buy new release movies (yes, I realize this is a bit dated) vs waiting for that same movie to be cheaper
*) not wait for sales of items that they know will be on sale in the future
*) buy pretty much anything -- not just technology, but anything that's going to have a better version available later. This applies to damn near anything from phones to cars, televisions, etc. Many items are becoming better and at the same or lower price point despite inflation, which should actually have the opposite effect.
*) buy anything at all on credit (and pay a finance charge) that is not a necessity -- ie buying a tv, furniture, any non-necessity on credit
The fact is, people have a desire for instant gratification. People want things. If they didn't, they'd have no need to work for more than what is required to cover their basic necessities. The fact that people work more and buy more is enough evidence that people want things. To say they will delay purchases indefinitely (ie never purchase) is something I just can't wrap my head around. People want things and that wouldn't stop because people don't want to wait for eternity to make those purchases. The anti-deflation argument in its simplest form is that deflation will cause people to delay purchases indefinitely to effectively save some X deflationary amount (say 2.5% as an example since that's roughly inflation).
What specific markets do you think would be negatively impacted by deflation? Since the pro-inflation people make it sound like the economy would literally collapse if there was deflation, what specific markets would be decimated by their product being 2.5% better for the money in 1 years time? I'm sure there's something, but it's not something I've put any real thought in to because like I said, if the anti-deflation argument boils down to "people will never purchase non-necessities", well that's just something I don't think merits being taken seriously.
Of course I'm ignoring hyper-deflation as that would be a bit different. I'm making these statements with the assumption of a small, but steady deflation at about the rate we have inflation.
