| Inflation |
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In the real world inflation and deflation are changes in the average price of all goods and services, not just one. Inflation in basic sense is “too much money chasing too few goods” To understand how this works, imagine a world that only has two commodities: Oranges picked from orange trees, and paper money printed by the government. In a year where there is a drought and oranges are scarce, we'd expect to see the price of oranges rise, as there will be quite a few dollars chasing very few oranges. Conversely, if there's a record crop or oranges, we'd expect to see the price of oranges fall, as orange sellers will need to reduce their prices in order to clear their inventory. These scenarios are inflation and deflation, respectively, though in the real world inflation and deflation are changes in the average price of all goods and services, not just one. We can also have inflation and deflation by changing the amount of money in the system. If the government decides to print a lot of money, then dollars will become plentiful relative to oranges, just as in our drought situation. Thus inflation is caused by the amount of dollars rising relative to the amount of oranges (goods and services), and deflation is caused by the amount of dollars falling relative to the amount of oranges. |