Hi Coach,

My leanings tend to go with deflation, though I was of a very different mind a few months ago. I understand increased money supply tends to be inflationary, however, at the end of the day, it comes down to goods and services and what people are willing to "bid" for them, does it not? Scant months ago, the oilfields were bidding up wages for anyone that could concievably operate equipment, and if you couldn't operate equipment, Timmies would bid on your time to sell coffee to those who could. People were bidding up wheat, oil, metals (going back almost a year now), stocks... everything. What is being bid higher now? It looks like there could be thousands of auto workers and oil field workers hitting the unemployment lines... if so, why would companies that do hire pay larger salaries to procure such an ample supply? I don't think any government infrastructure or corporate bailout plan would be big enough to suck up all that labor. And of course those looking at uncertain employment will not be bidding up houses, boats... much of anything. I am sure there are some rising prices out there somewhere, but from where I am sitting, I don't see them, and my wife says the mall is full of bargains too.

I still haven't wrapped my head around your statement a while back that ALL currencies are losing value. Even in a race of turtles, there are winners and losers (they had turtle races in SW MB some yrs ago...). We compare currencies to other currencies and to commodities like gold, and we can buy more commodities than we could 6 months ago. If it was a race to the bottom, wouldn't commodity prices be hitting new highs, instead of lows?

Cheers!