Massive U.S. trade deficits and foreign central bank dollar accumulation mean that much of the printed money winds up in foreign bank vaults, not U.S. shopping centers.
This is understandable because managing a small sum ofmoney in the early accumulation years is quite different than managing a large sum in retirement.
Yes, it was as if an entire generation of Americans consented to hopping aboard a giant hamster wheel ofaccumulation, all striving toward the imaginary objective of acquiring enough stuff and a pot ofmoney big enough to sustain a comfortable level of consumption through to the grave.
But in reality, deflation is the free-market approach to rectify a secular period of superfluous money supply growth, debt accumulation and asset price appreciation.