[scythe]

No, deflation is bad, period, for the economic actors who depend on deflationary currencies, and this is verified simply by looking at pretty much any historical instance of deflation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflation#Historical_examples

Notice how nothing good ever comes of deflation? That should be a hint. I would be highly suspicious of the unsourced "In Ireland" section:

http://byline.timetric.com/2010/11/25/ireland-deflation-debt...

though there were some upsides: http://marketmonetarist.com/2012/08/14/good-deflation-the-ca...

I'm not against Bitcoin per se, but all this anti-inflation crap is, quite simply, at odds with historical data to the point that it has become essentially "views differ on shape of planet". If economics is to be useful at all, it has no choice but to be empirical, and everything we've ever measured has always told us that deflation is bad.

Perhaps Satoshi simply felt it was easier to implement finite Bitcoins than a constantly increasing supply. I don't think he can be blamed for that. Bitcoin is, if nothing else, certainly intriguing.

[jafaku]

You are confusing the short lived deflation that could be caused by a deflationary currency, with the deflation caused by all the other problems mentioned in the wikipedia article, like "technological progress that created significant economic growth", "great advances in productivity", etc. Apparently the only problem brought by gold and silver was that there was a scarcity of coins (a physical problem), which would never happen with Bitcoin (a digital currency).

> Perhaps Satoshi simply felt it was easier to implement finite Bitcoins than a constantly increasing supply. I don't think he can be blamed for that. Bitcoin is, if nothing else, certainly intriguing.

No, he was against inflation. In the first block of the blockchain, he added a message; it was something about Bernake approving a new bailout for the banks.

[phaemon]

> No, deflation is bad, period, for the economic actors who depend on deflationary currencies,

USD (or GBP or AUD etc) are deflationary relative to technological items, such as computers. By your theory, no-one should buy such items. In reality, they do.

I think this shows your theory is wrong.