OPINION: Public Should Remember the Dangers of Deflation.

Nov. 10--For a generation still understandably scarred by memories of rampant inflation and its attendent evils, it is hard to grasp that the next threat to economic stability is likely to come from deflation, or falling prices.

The great achievement of macro-economic policy in the 1990s in all the major Western economies was the conquest of inflation; but the consequences of even moderately falling prices can be as devastating as that of double-digit price rises.

If you doubt that, look at Japan, where consumer prices have been falling for three years, incr