--or if you've already paid off your mortgage you'll find your wages cut and you'll only be able to sell your house'n'car for half what you paid for it. Same goes for all those gold'n'silver coins you hoarded. Other stuff too --from the article:
The belief that money made tomorrow will be worth less than money today stymies investment; the belief that goods bought tomorrow will be cheaper than goods bought today chokes consumption. Central bankers can no longer set real (that is, inflation-adjusted) interest rates low enough to restore demand. Wages, incomes and tax revenue all stall, undermining the ability of households, businesses and governments to pay their debts—debts which, in real terms, will grow more burdensome under deflation.
You'll only lose money on your assets if you sell. If possible hold onto these things until the value starts to comes back in 6 to 8 years. The house and car will depreciate some over the years but you will have the use of them. Definitely HOLD the precious metals.
The wages being cut thing really confuses me...
Why would deflation cut my wage that I already earn in salary arbitrarily, but at the same time as inflation goes out of control I seriously doubt my company will randomly tell me one day “Hey due to inflation here’s a 30% raise” I don’t see that ever happening.
By the same token it shouldn’t happen the other way... or is it we should just expect that the CEO is always so dastardly that they would cut due to deflation but never raise due to inflation? If so, then they are both worse than each other and 0% moving is the only thing we should aim for, so a raise is a real raise.
The author writes this confused statement, erroneously believing himself to be describing deflation. Deflation stymies investment because the reward for sitting on cash is greater than investing in assets that will lose monetary value. Idle cash increases in value in deflation in direct proportion to assets losing monetary value. Idle cash is increasingly valuable because it is in comparatively short supply. It's worth more so it takes less cash to buy a given asset, service or goods.
Returning yet again to the author's garbled attempt at defining deflation, he actually is describing inflation. Prices going up in aggregate means the money itself is worth less. More money is required to purchase the same asset, service or goods. Therefore, there is every incentive to spend and convert cash that is losing value into assets that are maintaining their value. This offers the illusion of "appreciation," when in fact a diluted currency just does not buy as much as before. There are too many dollars chasing too few assets, services or goods.
Inflation or deflation is first and foremost a direct effect of increasing or decreasing the money supply. Yes, there is so-called "cost-push" inflation, but that is seldom sufficient standalone to move the needle. It would need to be approaching crisis level shortage with a severe price shock in order to qualify as a truly inflationary event. For instance, the oil embargo of 1973. That was an inflationary event, it was an induced shortage that was widespread leading to massive price increases with severe economic consequence.