I guess one way of looking at 2008&#x2F;9 is that we avoided for a while what will be inevitable. That Severe price to pay is one I think we <i>need</i> to pay eventually. Forestalling it is possible, but it seems more responsible to realize that the longer we avoid it, the worse it gets.<p>Nobody is going to make money in a deflationary period, and excess consumption will fall, but it is still necessary to consume at baseline. The stock market is a very poor representation of true consumption, as it prices in too much of the future viewed through a very specific set of circumstances and assumptions.