To the rest of the community, those classes that are outside of business enterprise and outside of the industrial occupations proper, that is to say, those (non-industrial) classes who live on a fixed salary or similar fixed income, dull times are a thinly disguised blessing.
I don't think Veblen ever saw recession or depression combined with inflation. In such times cash was king. That was before resource depletion. The problem was deflation. That would be preferable to me to the current situation of real decline in the purchasing power of the dollar, especially for those who have to eat and use energy. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
But stagflation is not depression - depression is what you get when you use interest-rate shock therapy to stop stagflation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
