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Without accusing or mentioning names like Emile Zola or Joseph McCarthy, we observe that most expect more inflation or currency devaluation because of record Federal Bailouts, Deficit Budgets and Trade, Healthcare and Stim Tax Packages.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%27accuse_%28letter%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy
The lessons of history are that FIRST we have default-driven deflation, THEN we have hyperinflation, as Central Banks and Treasurers try to prime the pump to get the economy started again. The more imbalanced things are, the more stimulation it takes. If the economy is contracting as much as it has, over 10% so far, we are in depression, not recession, and major fiscal and monetary stimulus may not work for a long time of at all, as Hoover and FDR found.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation
Nations in Africa, Asia, Europe and Central and Latin America have all gone through hyperinflationary destruction of their currencies: Argentina, France, Germany, Hungary, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Zimbabwe come to mind. There are far more. Most of them were preceded by costly deadly war profiteering.
As Currency Expert Franz Pick declared, the destiny of all currency is to fade out of existence. Sometimes it happens quickly in the twinkling of an eye.
Default then hyperinflation happened in America in the Civil and Revolutionary Wars, although this was so long ago, most living today did not learn the lesson.
Classic economists understood the winter season of the economy was good for cleansing out unhealthy excesses, what Schumpeter called creative destruction. Indeed, down cycles were often times of lasting creative business innovations that changed the world.
Let us not confuse increasing costs of living with leveraged asset deflation.
