Deflation has been on my mind since 2006, when it became clear that credit could not expand forever, and indeed would likely shrink. As usual, I was way too early.
But I was curious to know when deflation hit mainstream public consciousness, so I plotted a graph of the S&P 500 vs the search volume for “deflation” on Google search.
Graph of searches for “deflation” vs S&P 500. Click on graph to zoom
For much of 2006 and 2007 (as shown in the yellow and orange lines in the graph above), deflation was not really a topic of curiosity on Google. Then suddenly around September 2008 (blue line), interest surged in deflation, and the S&P 500 “correction” (to put it mildly) soon followed.
But when I compared searches for inflation, deflation and hyperinflation - inflation came out WAY ahead. Of course, inflation is a much more commonly used word, so that probably accounts for a large volume of searches - but still, it is interesting to see how, even now, inflation is much more on our collective minds than deflation.
Graph of searches for deflation, hyperinflation, inflation in 2008. Click to zoom
Data sources:
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