The Mythical Downward Spiral of Deflation

A useful NYT article on the latest moves by the European Central Bank's to try to prop up the euro zone economy included a comment near the end:

"Thursday’s moves signaled that at least one European institution is doing all it can to avert the threat of deflation — the pernicious downward spiral of prices that often leads to high unemployment."

Actually there is no basis for the fears of this sort of downward spiral. As the piece correctly points out, the euro zone economy is already sufferin...