um they are one and the same.
fall in money supply = fall in prices.
LOL bigman, I didn’t think you were that ignorant.
Re money supple and prices, there is a difference.
Firstly, I think in terms of money supply. The government has messed around with the CPI throughout the years that it is crap for the purpose of historical comparisons.
With regard to the money supply, check out the quarterly Fed Z1 report, levels page.
If you believe that money is debt then the level of debt is contracting across the spectrum. The exception being the federal government debt. We have forces of deflation affecting households and businesses while the Keynesian government tries to re-inflate.
Governments tend to win the battle in the end. This does not necessarily lead to hyperinflation, or even high inflation. Look at the stimulus of the 1930s and 1940s. There was only modest inflation in the 50s and 60s. High inflation did not happen until the 1970s.
The trouble nowadays is that attitudes of people towards their currency could change. In the 30s-60s in the US they did not have fiat money. There was a gold standard (of changing degrees). People therefore did not really lose faith in their currency.
We now only have money backed by the promise from the government. This is why the sovereign default theme is so important.
In all countries where citizens start to distrust their paper money they spend their money quickly before losing value. Serious inflation is certainly a possibility.