I ran across this graphic earlier today, which is both interesting and informative. It overtly says that fighting wars is a bad idea; I certainly agree with that. It should never be other than a last resort (as in, 'I need to keep this person from killing me', not as in, 'If you don't clean your room right this instant').
It also strongly implies that inflation is a bad thing, and weakly implies that deflation is a good thing. If the latter is true, well, that certainly doesn't gibe with opinions I've heard from any economist. It's certainly true that a lot of inflation is a bad thing, but a little bit is generally a good thing.
Why is that? Because most people are debtors to some degree (granted, some are so by choice, rather than necessity, but that's an awfully small category). And if you owe money, a small amount of inflation reduces the burden of that debt. This is also why deflation is bad: it INcreases the burden of debt. Think about that for a minute. Think that mortgage is expensive now?
The graphic ends with the thought, how would it feel if your dollar went twenty times as far as it does? Well, that would be nice, but unless you've been holding on to that dollar for over a century, it's not relevant.
Yeah, I'd love for my dollar to go twenty times as far as it does, but if it did, I'd also make 1/20th what I make now (probably; certainly something close to that). So really, what's the point?
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