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Does anyone think that the current massively inflated prices will ever fall? I'm still so pissed off about it, a year later. Due to the fact that much of my income is based on the company's stock, which massively fell the same time inflation went nuts, I make less money now than I did a few years ago, despite having been promoted and working harder than ever. Couple that with inflation making my money worth less, and it's a wonder I can afford any non-essential spending at all. Every single good that I buy has increased in price by very noticable amounts. Generally, many people may not have the same problem as me, where their income is based on stock, but still, most people's cost of living has greatly increased and their income has stayed the same. Prices have been so out of control lately.
Is it just the Russia-Ukraine war that's keeping prices so high, or is it more than that, like aftershock from the pandemic, lockdowns, and COVID relief spending upending the economy? What's the best to hope for? If the war ends, is all we have to look forward to a reduction in inflation, meaning that prices will stop going up? Or is deflation a possibility, to bring prices back down to previous levels? I know close to nothing about econ, but I always hear deflation talked about as if it's this terrible thing. I don't really know why, I guess just because it destabilizes the market, and makes outstanding debts larger. To me right now, my dollar being worth more sounds great. Is deflation immediately following inflation a bad thing if it just brings prices back to previous levels?
Deflation does solve price rises, but we haven't had it for so long that you've forgotten how bad it is.
The most famous deflationary crisis was of course the Great Depression. Imagine unemployment hitting record highs, nobody being able to find a place in society because investment has been so heavily discouraged that holding assets is the only rational thing to do. And nobody is starting any businesses.
Oh sure prices will be low, but you won't have any money to buy. I would predict a sharp rise in crime too. Idle hands and all that.
Classically, there are only two ways of lowering prices.
Increasing supply, which is only possible through productivity increases and out of question for energy and all it's derivatives at the moment.
Or lowering demand, which means reducing the amount of things people consume or reducing the people, one way or the other.
Monetarist takes on it revolve around the size of the money supply, and reducing it in this case, by a sharp rise in taxes and all other mechanisms that allow the government to take money out of circulation. So austerity pretty much, more taxes, less services.
The current approach by the Fed (and therefore everyone) is to raise interest rates, thereby discouraging monetary creation and hope that we can return to the more reasonable 2% inflation rate and hope that the best part of the price increases doesn't "stick".
But nobody sane would ever advocate for sustained deflation because it's politically untenable, especially in a nominal democracy.
Tax hikes and austerity are a political loser, hence why they are so uncommon or limited
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