If Wall Street Crashes, Does Main Street

In Fact, The World Needs More Nerds.

It Must Be Awfully Frustrating To Get A Small Raise At Work And Then Have It All Eaten By A Higher Cost Of Commuting.

Like Gold, U.s. Dollars Have Value Only To The Extent That They Are Strictly Limited In Supply. But The U.s. Government Has A Technology, Called A Printing Press (or, Today, Its Electronic Equivalent), That Allows It To Produce As Many U.s. Dollars As It Wishes At Essentially No Cost. By Increasing The Number Of U.s. Dollars In Circulation, Or Even By Credibly Threatening To Do So, The U.s. Government Can Also Reduce The Value Of A Dollar In Terms Of Goods And Services, Which Is Equivalent To Raising The Prices In Dollars Of Those Goods And Services.

Not All Information Is Beneficial.

The Basic Prescription For Preventing Deflation Is Therefore Straightforward, At Least In Principle: Use Monetary And Fiscal Policy As Needed To Support Aggregate Spending, In A Manner As Nearly Consistent As Possible With Full Utilization Of Economic Resources And Low And Stable Inflation. In Other Words, The Best Way To Get Out Of Trouble Is Not To Get Into It In The First Place.