The "vicious circle of deepening malaise":

Just when you thought the economy couldn't get any worse, economists are now terrified that prices are … gulp! … falling! While Joe (he's not really Joe) the Plumber (he's not even a plumber) is terrified that he might make so much money that he'll have to actually pay his back taxes, our nation's leading economic fantasizers are dreading the onset of deflation. (The economic condition during which the prices of goods and services actually become cheaper. (See today's New York Times story.)

How do you cure this problem? Well, one way is to print more money and cause inflation. According to Kenneth S. Rogoff, formerly of the now infamous International Monetary Fund (IMF) and currently a Harvard professor, “A significant financial crisis has been allowed to morph into a full-fledged global panic. It’s a very dangerous situation. The danger is that instead of having a few bad years, we’ll have another lost decade.”