Deflation fears

Some of the products we use have seen modest increases this year, but some things have fallen so far, so fast, that it's scary.

Acrylic coating............................. down 25% from a job quoted last October Steel deck, type B....................... JUST QUOTED AT $55 AND 52 PER SQUARE DEPENDING QUANTITY. We were paying almost $150/square for it not all that long ago.

What other price swings are you guys starting to see? It seems to me that everyone is looking for an order, no matter how bad the price may hurt.>>>

Thanks Miscreant. Excellent, concise description, and one that I would have struggled with.

That 66% drop in steel deck is what really concerns me. Yes, I think that prices in the $150's were over inflated due to the cost of energy and we should have seen a corresponding drop to the price of oil, but 10 years ago we were paying $80 something a square for steel deck, if memory serves me well. A price in the 50's is terrifyingly indicative of the world market condition. I know that a friend in the scrap business has told me that for the first time his history, a major steel company in our area has stopped buying scrap. I was in one of that same Co.'s plants two weeks ago and it looked like a ghost town.

We have a long way to go to pull out of this thing.>>>

Deflation can cause a depression or severe recession. The problem with deflation is that no monetary policy can be used to soften it's blow. Inflation is caused by too many dollars after too few goods, deflation is not enough dollars after too many goods. In deflation currency and the value of goods and services goes down.In a nut shell if that happens we are screwed.>>>