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Deflation is the Voldemort of the coronavirus era
Yahoo-Bloomberg/Daniel Moss/4-25-2020
“It’s understandable that the human tragedy of climbing unemployment and the nosedive in the broader economy is taking precedence for policy makers. Inflation targets seem arcane, even churlish, in times of existential crisis. Certainly, there’s little prospect of a meaningful spike, if history is anything to go by. A decade ago, conservative economists wrote an open letter to then-Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warning that the Fed’s quantitative easing would provoke runaway inflation and dollar debasement. Didn’t happen.”
The world has more to fear from deflation than hyperinflation
Financial Times/Editorial Board/4-28-2020
“[C]entral banks have printed money, partly to finance government spending, while production of everything from cars to kitchen extensions has collapsed. Worries about inflation, therefore, are understandable. But they are misplaced: the world economy has more to fear from deflation.
Inflation never materialized after the last crisis. JPMorgan thinks this time Is different
Institutional Investor/Christine Idzelis/4-27-2020
“JPMorgan Chase & Co. is warning investors that an inflation bomb may go off in the aftermath of the coronavirus recession — even though it failed to ignite in the record-long expansion following the 2008 financial crisis. ‘Investors would still be well advised to structure their portfolios with an eye to the possibility that it could,’ David Kelly, chief global strategist of JPMorgan’s asset management unit, wrote in a Monday note. He recommended real assets such as real estate and precious metals, saying they ‘can serve an 
important, although long-redundant role, in protecting a portfolio against the risk of inflation.’” [Emphasis added]
USAGOLD note: Who’s right? It’s a flip of the coin. There is a course of action, however, that makes a great deal of sense and alluded to in the second offering above by JPM”s David Kelly. A gold diversification can go a long way in protecting against either or both and all the hybrids in between. We referenced this report in this morning’s DMR and repost it now for those who may have missed it.