Besides the chilling prospect of a global economic Ice Age that would cripple demand for metals of every description as well as oil and natural gas, commodities were savaged by the great unwinding of insanely leveraged speculation. Following the lead of housing and credit, commodities have been prime casualties of the financial collapse, whose effects are likely to linger on long after the fierce hemorrhaging has been stanched.
There's always a silver lining, or what are tried and true maxims for? And, sure enough, the dark clouds that envelop the current global landscape contain one: We seemingly don't have to worry about inflation for the nonce. Hold the sigh of relief, please, because that could mean we have to start worrying about deflation.
And, in any case, you needn't be in any rush to put away your inflation worry-beads. For if not immediately, you'll certainly need them in the not-too-distant future. That's guaranteed by the government's unbridled resort to its magical money machine.
Those trillions -- by one count, as much as $3 trillion that Washington has thrown helter-skelter at just about anything and anybody that wails loudly enough -- will come back to haunt us. Call it reflation, call it inflation, but you can't in good times as well as bad relentlessly debauch the currency without paying the price.
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