I almost bought it, I do believe we are in danger of moving toward deflation. However, I don't think that this is inevitible due to the whims of human emotion and the market runs completely on the overall mood of the nation. The mood of the nation was really at a high point when the bank crash that led to the Depression took place. Part of the reason wasn't just account holder panic - part was the reality the banks had very little money in their coffers in comparison to deposits. Saying that if the country is happy, the country is prosperous makes it sound like if we all got happy pills we'd never have a downturn - just because we'd never get any work done doesn't matter, right? The market doesn't just run on emotions, or else there would be a lot of companies that would have perfectly horrible stock returns that have good ones - a lot of people don't like microsoft but do go out and buy their software and stock.