They can also wipe out huge amounts of owners (shareholders) wealth by stupid, self-serving and corrupt activities.
Riiiiight.
And when we look at equity fund money flows, what do we see? Which way is the money going? In or out of stocks?
We currently have 9.8% unemployment among citizens, and probably 55.0% or higher unemployment among 20 million illegal aliens.
That's very consistent with what the doomsayers are telling you.
Now, let's go a little further ~ by tonnage American industrial production continues to move ahead, but the dollar value is far lower. This is due to dramatic increases in productivity. Robotics and computerization will continue to reduce the cost of things ~ and we've just gotten started on that process ~ which is 100% deflationary.
I think what you are up against is using Old Economics that assumes the utility of money to evaluate New Economic conditions that work with or without money.
Real (U-6) is well over 12%, major banks show "profit" only via the accounting trick of subtracting the decrease in the worth of their own issued debt, the "personal savings rate" for the eighth quarter in a row is double what it was before the economic collapse, business foreclosures remain at gaspingly high levels, you can't get a flight in or out of Greece most days, the universally hated Financial Reform Act has passed, and the BP well really isn't officially capped yet.
I'd say the "past, scary outlooks" were and continue to be right on the *cough* money.
BIG PICTURE Many prominent economists define deflation as a decline in the general price level within an economy. To make matters worse, these academics use the establishments highly manipulated inflation data as their yardstick. Therefore, when the heavily massaged Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Producer Price Index (PPI) show a moderate increase, these folks celebrate the perfect scenario of moderate inflation and when the CPI and PPI contract, they worry about deflation. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people blindly follow the views of the mainstream economists. Consequently, they end up making costly mistakes with their capital.