US Inflation

Most of us know that high inflation is bad, but deflation (negative inflation) is detrimental.

When comparing the 8.0% inflation of 2022 to 111 years of recent inflation data, there were twelve years during which inflation was higher. Two of those years had inflation more than double, at 17.8% and 17.3%. There were also five years during which we experienced deflation greater than 5%, all during severe depressions of 1921 and 1931. In total, there were seventeen years where price stability was worse, or far worse than our recent experience with inflation.

Often economic growth and inflation are closely linked. Years of low inflation are not necessarily positive if growth was also very low, or even negative.