Well, if you want to know whether we are on the inflation or deflation side of the curve watch the stock market. During QEII share prices were rising even though the economy was still in the tank and companies were not performing better than they had in the past.
At first I could not figure out why this was happening. Then I realized that it was simply because the companies affected had not changed their value as a percentage of the total value of the economy, but there were a lot more dollars out there. So it took more dollars to buy the same percentage of an individual company (which is what a share of stock represents — a fixed percentage of the total value of a company), so that the price of the stock went up.
Does not make me comfortable.
Incidentally, I started one pararaph “In the 1880s and early 1990s, when the United States was on the gold standard, something like this happened.” I meant “1880s and early 1890s.”
I knew what you meant about the gold standard.
BTW many international companies benefited simply by the devaluation of the dollar against other currencies since they price in dollars. GE made tons of “additional” revenue simply by the move of the dollar.