This Is What Deflation Looks Like

Bruce Bartlett has a good piece on fears of inflation from the Great Depression. It's worth reading if for no other reason to show that otherwise intelligent people are able to believe completely absurd propositions about the economy and the world. (Sorry, worrying about inflation in the 1930s was loony.)

Anyhow, the piece is useful for another reason, Bartlett has a chart showing the rate of deflation at the start of the depression. Prices fell by 2.3 percent in 1930, 9.0 percent in 1931, 9....