Quote:
Originally Posted by spazlabz
that article is depressing as hell. I remember the inflation of the 70s and it sucked ass. If China stops buying the US debt couldn't that lead to super inflation?
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You mean Hyper-inflation? That's a radical forecast usually made by Ron Paulians, perpetual gold bugs, anarcho-capitalists and/or anti-Fed / Banker conspiracy theorists.
Here's the
inflation data for the past 10 years. You can look at each decade prior to that going back to 1913. The average rate of inflation since then is around 3.2%.
Notice we had slight deflation in 2009 and were faced with a deflationary spiral and credit freeze world wide. That's bad and that's what the FED / Gov't would rather avoid and why they did what they did (monetary / fiscal stimulus). Now before the peanut gallery jumps all over me, I'm not making a value judgment on whether that is good or not, just offering the facts.
IMO, Inflation of the sort that we had in the 70's (stagflation) is possible. But then again, it is possible that we slip back into deflation which would be even worse. The least likely thing you can say at this point is that hyper-inflation is the threat.
Also worth pointing out is that not a single currency in the world today is backed even 1% by gold / silver. The Swiss Franc used to be back 40%, but they had to sell it to join the IMF.