Inflation is as dead as the Wicked Witch of the West in a waterfall. The consumer price index has actually fallen 1.3% in the past 12 months. So why is everyone so worried about soaring prices?<\/p>\n
In a word: debt. The government owes the world $11.4 trillion \u201d\u201d $37,000 for every person in the U.S. In the next fiscal year, the government will add $1.8 trillion to the deficit.<\/p>\n
The government could simply print more dollars to pay off our debts with cheap currency \u201d\u201d a tempting but inflationary solution. Politicians wouldn’t have to ask citizens to pay for the government’s services, and citizens wouldn’t have to think about the actual cost of what they demand \u201d\u201d until, of course, the currency collapses, interest rates soar and the economy craters. Some on Wall Street are betting on just that scenario. Universa Investments \u201d\u201d linked to Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Wall Street’s biggest book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable\u201d\u201d is adding strategies that will soar if inflation takes off. Respected hedge fund adviser 36 South Investment Managers is raising $100 million for a fund that will bet on soaring price increases. And Marc Faber, editor of the Gloom Boom & Doom Report, a newsletter, predicts that U.S. inflation will someday match Zimbabwe’s \u201d\u201d that would be 236 million percent a year.<\/p>\n