&gt; Yes, because that&#x27;s absolutely what happened.<p>Sales are down down. Total sales. Not &quot;high end sales&quot;. All sales.<p>&gt; Why should wages decrease?<p>The economy is growing. The population is growing. Everything is growing… except your money supply. You have to make products cheaper with fixed wages, your personnel costs will explode, until it&#x27;s no longer affordable to pay the current rates.<p>Same with rents: Building housing will become progressively cheaper. Rents, land taxes, etc. will have to go down to match these prices, or nobody will be able to afford living in existing housing any more.<p>&gt; People would definitely go back to saving and away from making debts.<p>You seem to conflate a lot of issues here. We had inflation with gold standards (because you can debase your currency anyway). We had crashes and bubbles with gold standards (and pre-gold-standard gold based currencies, which you conflate too…). The destruction of the middle class and impoverishment of the lower classes aren&#x27;t a result of fiat currencies.<p>&gt; That is not a problem, the need to invest money when there is no objective reason to do so is what leads to investment bubbles and excessive debts.<p>Except that deflation will result in a shortage of investment even where there is objective need.