Deflation Quotes

• The sources of deflation are not a mystery. Deflation is in almost all cases a side effect of a collapse of aggregate demand.. a drop in spending so severe that producers must cut prices on an ongoing basis in order to find buyers.

  Ben Bernanke

  Cutting, Order, Ongoing

  "Helicopter Money" by Richard Duncan, www.businessinsider.com. July 1, 2011.

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• If inflation is the genie, then deflation is the ogre that must be fought decisively.

  Christine Lagarde

  Genies, Inflation, Ifs

  "Davos Dilemma: How To Help, Not Harm, World’s Fragile Recovery", www.huffingtonpost.com. January 21, 2014.

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• Unemployment is sky-rocketing; deflation is in our future for the first time since the Great Depression. I don't care whose fault it is, it's the truth.

  John Mellencamp

  Depression, Sky, Unemployment

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• However, in spite of the general perception that monetary policy should be conducted so as to avert deflation, a central bank cannot lower interest rates below the zero lower bound.

  Toshihiko Fukui

  Zero, Perception, Should

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• The basic prescription for preventing deflation is therefore straightforward, at least in principle: Use monetary and fiscal policy as needed to support aggregate spending, in a manner as nearly consistent as possible with full utilization of economic resources and low and stable inflation. In other words, the best way to get out of trouble is not to get into it in the first place.

  Ben Bernanke

  Business, Support, Principles

  "Deflation: Making Sure "It" Doesn't Happen Here". Ben Bernanke's Remarks Before the National Economists Club in Washington, D.C., www.federalreserve.gov. November 21, 2002.

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• You can't rule out deflation just because you've never seen it in your lifetime.

  Greg Mankiw

  Lifetime

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• Our purpose is to lean against the winds of deflation or inflation, whichever way they are blowing.

  William McChesney Martin

  Wind, Purpose, Way

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• Deflation means a slowdown of income growth. Markets shrink, new capital investment and employment also taper off, so wages decline. That is what's happening as deliberate policy in Europe and the United States. Falling or stagnant prices are simply the result of having less income to spend.

  Michael Hudson

  Fall, Mean, Europe

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• The real problem is deflation. That is the opposite of inflation but equally serious to the borrower.

  Jack Kemp

  Real, Opposites, Serious

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• No central banker would disagree with the proposition that inflation is primarily a monetary phenomenon. Not one of them will disagree that every inflation has been accompanied by a rapid increase in the quantity of money and every deflation by a decline in the quantity of money.

  Milton Friedman

  Bankers, Rapids, Increase

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• When there's deflation, it means that although most markets are shrinking and people have less to spend, the 1% that hold the 99% in debt are getting all the growth in wealth and income. Deflation means that income is being transferred to the 1%, that is, to the creditors and property owners.

  Michael Hudson

  Mean, People, Growth

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• Despite the recent conviction of many that we're headed back to inflation, I think deflation remains the more likely prospect. You've just got too much excess capacity in the world.

  Gary Shilling

  Thinking, Excess, World

  Source: www.sfgate.com

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• Deflation and secular stagnation are the risks of our time.

  Lawrence Summers

  Inspiring, Risk, Economic

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• With QE3, we are essentially being bought out with our own money...and unemployment is being used to facilitate this process in a very clever manner. Monetary inflation is currently being offset by labor deflation. The way you avoid collapse is by printing money and stealing assets. The way you avoid inflation is with labor deflation.

  Catherine Austin Fitts

  Clever, Printing Money, Unemployment

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• Inflation is not always the main problem, or indeed a problem at all. Sometimes, though rarely, deflation is a more serious threat, and we need to shelve many of the orthodoxies we have held so dear.

  Gavyn Davies

  Needs, Orthodoxy, Serious

  "We must start thinking like South American dictators" by Gavyn Davies, www.theguardian.com. November 12, 2008.

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• Significant changes in the growth rate of money supply, even small ones, impact the financial markets first. Then, they impact changes in the real economy, usually in six to nine months, but in a range of three to 18 months. Usually in about two years in the US, they correlate with changes in the rate of inflation or deflation."
  "The leads are long and variable, though the more inflation a society has experienced, history shows, the shorter the time lead will be between a change in money supply growth and the subsequent change in inflation.

  Milton Friedman

  Real, Years, Significant Change

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• This law represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means completed--a structure intended to lessen the force of possible future depressions, to act as a protection to future administrations of the Government against the necessity of going deeply into debt to furnish relief to the needy--a law to flatten out the peaks and valleys of deflation and of inflation--in other words, a law that will take care of human needs and at the same time provide for the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Mean, Government, Law

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• To face deflation, you have to have people accepting it and not reacting to it.

  Carlos Ghosn

  People, Faces, Accepting

  "Q&A: Carlos Ghosn: What Japan Needs Is a Vision". Interview with Joyce Barnathan and Chester Dawson, www.bloomberg.com. December 16, 2002.

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• As a whole, [changing] is deflation force that is being underestimated. Whether each person thinks of it in the context of the word deflation ... what they think of it is, "Hard to hold my margin. I'm under margin pressure. I'm under sales pressure. I'm under cost pressure."

  Ken Moelis

  Thinking, Cost, Pressure

  Source: nordic.businessinsider.com

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• Basically, unless you're willing to write down debts and save the economy, you're going to have deflation and a steady drain in purchasing power - that is, shrinking markets.

  Michael Hudson

  Writing, Shrinking, Debt

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• For years, we've grown dependant on American consumers as the world's spenders of last resort. They've kept Europe out of recession, allowed China to industrialise, and prevented global deflation. But at the same time, they've not been looking after their own futures.

  Evan Davis

  Years, Europe, World

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• A little humiliation and ego deflation, now and then, is good for apprentices. Mine sighed miserably.

  Jim Butcher

  Ego, Littles, Now And Then

  Jim Butcher (2010). “The Dresden Files Collection 7-12”, p.1330, Penguin

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• The U. S. is headed toward a period of business depression... beginning within the next two years, which may exceed that which preceded the War. ... The only thing that will save us is a new gold policy or the discovery of a new process or additional gold fields. If the fall [of gold production] is not prevented by design or accident we shall throttle business, wringing out all profits and experiencing all the evils of deflation.

  Irving Fisher

  War, Fall, Discovery

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• A big secular thing going on is technology and deflation. This is where I think millennials are getting that it is an improvement in life, and they're taking advantage of it.

  Ken Moelis

  Technology, Thinking, Millennials

  Source: nordic.businessinsider.com

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• When they say inflation is bad, deflation is good, what they mean is, more money for us 1% is good; we're all for asset price inflation, we're all for housing prices going up, and we're all for our stock and bonds prices going up. We're just against you workers getting more income.

  Michael Hudson

  Mean, Income, Assets

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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