> deflation, which tends to be economically disastrous as it rewards doing nothing
Why's deflation different from e.g. sitting on treasury bonds? The money was originally printed by the government, the bonds are issued by the government, so sitting on bonds does nothing except pays you for taking money out of the economy temporarily, same as deflation.
If e.g. nobody would ever buy a computer because it'd be 2% cheaper if you wait a year, you could just as well argue that if bonds yield 2% above inflation you could park your money in them and wait a year and have 2% more money so nobody would ever buy anything.
Why's deflation different from e.g. sitting on treasury bonds? The money was originally printed by the government, the bonds are issued by the government, so sitting on bonds does nothing except pays you for taking money out of the economy temporarily, same as deflation.
If e.g. nobody would ever buy a computer because it'd be 2% cheaper if you wait a year, you could just as well argue that if bonds yield 2% above inflation you could park your money in them and wait a year and have 2% more money so nobody would ever buy anything.