May I rebut? I think the best way to argue this is that overaccumulated capital has been building up in various ways over the past 30 years, and that instead of profits being reinvested in productive plant/equipment the way we saw during the 1950s-60s, the 80s-90s had dramatic downturns in investment/GDP, with profit streams (and surpluses more generally) instead being channeled into financial asset inflation (which, via the private-sector credit bubble, actually translates as deferred payment for current consumption, not deferred consumption). At the same time, the necessary (so far partial) "devaluation" of overaccumulated capital gets moved around (spatially and temporally), and price inflation is just one of many forms of deflation. And sure, it could certainly emerge again as a preferred ruling-class mode of devaluation (as in late 1970s when the Fed was run by an industrialist not a neolib), but I would bet against it, given the continuing hegemony of international finance over policy-making in Washington and most other capitals. (Look for a big financial crash plus contagion into real sector instead.)
(So I guess I'm arguing that you are mistaking a symptom for a cause.)
Patrick Bond (pbond at wn.apc.org) home: 51 Somerset Road, Kensington 2094 South Africa phone: (2711) 614-8088 work: University of the Witwatersrand Graduate School of Public and Development Management PO Box 601, Wits 2050, South Africa work email: bond.p at pdm.wits.ac.za work phone: (2711) 717-3917 work fax: (2711) 484-2729 cellphone: (27) 83-633-5548 * Municipal Services Project website -- http://www.queensu.ca/msp * to order new book: Cities of Gold, Townships of Coal -- http://store.yahoo.com/africanworld/865436126.html