A descida de preços (a que alguns chamam de deflação) “is allways positive”

Ler o último texto publicado por George Reisman no Mises Institute: The Anatomy of Deflation

"...when falling prices are the result of monetary contraction, rather than increases in production and supply, and are accompanied by actual economic hardship rather than by general prosperity, their specific contribution to the situation is not only not that of cause, but of remedy. Falling prices in response to monetary contraction are precisely what enable a reduced quantity of money and volume of spending to buy as many goods and to employ as many workers as did the previously larger quantity of money and volume of spending. Preventing the fall in prices, including a fall in wage rates, serves only to prevent the restoration of production and employment.

Let me put it this way. Deflation is not falling prices. It is monetary contraction. Falling prices are necessary as a response to deflation, which is prior, and which exists whether prices do or do not fall, and can exist even if prices rise. Falling prices in response to deflation are economically beneficial, in that they enable a reduced quantity of money and volume of spending to buy as much as the previously larger quantity of money and volume of spending bought.

In other words, the effect of falling prices is always positive. They should not be confused with deflation or depression and are certainly not their cause. On the contrary, as we have seen, they are a remedy for the effects of deflation. And this is true even for debtors. It is not the level of prices that makes it difficult to repay a debt, but the amount of money one can earn in relation to the size of the debts one must pay. If the average member of the economic system can no longer earn as much money as he used to, and thus finds it more difficult to repay any given amount of money debt, then the fact that prices fall does not make him earn still less. Rather it enables his reduced spending power to buy more. His problem is in the relationship between the amount of money he can earn and the amount of money he must repay. His problem is not caused by a greater buying power of that money."