Most 401k’s will mail checks when people want to roll funds over. Sometimes to the receiving companies, sometimes directly to the client. They won’t even overnight it or put a tracking number on it either. Just snail mail hope it shows up some day.

Fair. The 2% inflation that the FED is pursuing by raising rates is because that’s the economic sweet spot. If we end up in a 10 year deflationary period then that would be catastrophic. I was moreso referencing a short term “return to 2019 numbers” type of deflation that I believe could be a good thing for people.

Since the FED is focused on a 2% inflation hedge and we’ve raised interest rates so much, they would just lower them again to prevent a repeat of Japan. They’re predicted to lower them next year because of this.

Financial planner here. Deflation is bad for “everybody” that wants to talk to you about it. It’s bad for financial planners because it makes the stock market go down, so we make less money. It’s bad for politicians because everybody that votes seems to think the economy consists of however high the Dow Jones gets. It’s bad for companies because it’ll cut into their profits. The more these entities can convince you that deflation is bad, the more likely people are to campaign against it.

The real truth of it is that deflation is good for PEOPLE. People are not the economy. The concern I have is that during a deflationary period companies tend to do more layoffs and cut corners on quality control. As long as income & unemployment stay the same then deflation would be a very welcome reprieve from these last couple of years.

This is why the union strikes are so important right now. If people see that the current union strikes work, then they’re far more likely to unionize when companies start to do layoffs. Really the only way for companies to protect themselves from deflation is to screw over the workers, and unions stand in direct opposition to that move.