100% correct Sean, but doing that would make sense. This country does not do things like that, it would upset all commercial property owners who are politicians & friends of politicians. Until this country stops corruption at the top we dont stand a chance.

If prices fall then people think they may fall further and so they hold back their spending. It’s actually inflation that makes people think prices may rise further, leading them to make their purchases now!

David is correct. If we have deflation, people have an incentive to save rather than spend. A recession is too many people saving rather than spending. So a low inflation rate that we have at the minute is actually a good thing.

Didn’t that liar Lenihan raise VAT at the worst time on record.

An inflation rate of 1.8% is fairly low, lets be honest about that. EU inflation is at 2.6%. That is an important step in to restoring our competitive position.

If people think inflation is a beatch, then they should try some prolonged deflation. Deflation destroys demand, destroys jobs and businesses, increases debt burden on state and individual.

As for the crims in FF. I’m sure our economic well being is the last thing on their mind.

I don’t think like that David and I am a people .
Who are these ‘people’ of whom you speak?
And why are they so stoopid

Set on gold is the worst possible idea. The dollar was removed off the gold standard to try and save the currency and combat inflation. Just like Germany in the 20′s had to scrap their gold standard currency to combat inflation that spiralled out of control. See a pattern here?

In 1971, the gold standard system, established at Bretton Woods, was abandoned in favour of a fiat currency system with the US dollar positioned as the global reserve currency. This allowed the US to bridge funding gaps, caused by the cost of funding both the Vietnam war and the ongoing Cold war with Russia.
The world benefitted greatly from this momentous decision.
Firstly, the US, liberated from the monetary shackles of the gold standard, could finance enhanced military expansion/adventurism without subjecting American voters to onerous levels of taxation.
Secondly, fiat currency offered enhanced economic capabilities to central planners (governments, central banks). The volume of currency supplied into the economy could be increased to stimulate growth (monetary easing) during recessionary episodes. This was particularly opportune for nations like the US & Britain as their domestic manufacturing industries were in decline in the 1970’s. In both these nations, uncompetitive businesses were allowed to fail as any economic impacts were, or would be, mitigated by a, soon to be, thriving banking and financial services sector courtesy of the enhanced monetary capabilies now available to central planners.
An anomaly of fiat currency is it’s requirement for constant monetary expansion and it’s propensity to generate credit fuelled booms and debt. As fiat currency holds no intrinsic value, to ensure monetary stability all new currency is issued as debt. Central banks issue new currency to governments and Market participants as collaterallised debt. To allow for repayment of this new currency (debt) the volume of new currency must constantly increase (constant monetary expansion). Needless to say, the rate of monetary expansion has increased expotentially over subsequent decades.
While governments issue bonds to their central banks to access new currency, Market participants faced increasing difficulty sourcing, the expotentially increasing quantities of securities required to access new currency. The danger of a collateral drought were that the wheels would come off the accelerating fiat currency roundabout.
In the US, this problem was overcome by issuance of toxic securities. In many cases these were facilitated by the expanding subprime mortgage market.
European banks, as well as trading in toxic derivative securities also, accessed collateral via the government bonds of recently enhanced creditworthiness of nations such as Greece. Also, newly created collateral courtesy of credit-fuelled building booms in countries such as Spain and Ireland.

http://mises.org/daily/6065/The-Fiasco-of-Fiat-Money

A point of fact, Germany suspended gold redemption of the Reichsmark upon the outbreak of WW1. When Germany experienced hyperinflation during the Weirmar republic their currency was a fiat currency not gold backed.
http://www.usagold.com/cpm/nightmare.html