I guess one way of looking at 2008/9 is that we avoided for a while what will be inevitable. That Severe price to pay is one I think we need to pay eventually.

I guess one way of looking at 2008/9 is that we avoided for a while what will be inevitable. That Severe price to pay is one I think we need to pay eventually. Forestalling it is possible, but it seems more responsible to realize that the longer we avoid it, the worse it gets. 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.