[dualityoftapirs]

It's more the bigger investments that drive a lot of the economy that are the concern - think real estate and stocks. Why buy a $1 million home today if you'll be able to buy it from $980k next year, and maybe $965k the year after that? More importantly, why continue paying the mortgage on your million dollar home when it's likely never to be worth a million again? Why buy 10,000 shares of a company now, when in a few years you could buy 10,500 shares for the same price?

[mahogany]

That's fair - but that is assuming indefinite long-term deflation. What about intermittent modest deflation as a tool to bring prices down? It seems that just the idea of deflation is immediately rejected in any conversation about monetary policy.

Also, I think in the real world today, a home would still sell in a deflationary environment, given serious supply shortages. Especially for those buyers which are looking for a home and not an investment (investors would lose long term in a deflationary environment, as you say). Couldn't temporary, modest deflation actually open the housing market up for those "real" buyers primarily looking for a place to live?

[dualityoftapirs]

The fear with trying for temporary deflation is it will become an out of control feedback loop, because there aren't as many "reasonable" monetary tools to combat it as there are with inflation.