To play devil's advocate, how many of these are genuine requests because people want to spend bitcoin? How many are those with a vested interest trying to sustain the price growth with no real interest in actually spending their bitcoins?
That'd be falling into the very same fallacy Ashley was just talking about. If the bitcoin price rises and there are plentiful bitcoin stores, people
will spend their bitcoin. I'd consider buying a nice new laptop from Bitcoinstore right now if international shipping were practical and I could get a good system for less than, say, 2 BTC.
The devil makes a good point - either way we have to assume that people spend deflationary currencies (at least enough to sustain economic activity) or assume that they don't.
I can only speak for myself; I spend my bitcoins on stuff, and I know plenty of other people that do. I think the stores making bitcoin sales would tell you that the deflationary hoarding theory is bullshit based on their sales records, but who knows. I don't have figures, I just have a seive in my hand leaking water at an alarming rate, and it's labeled "theory that bitcoins are not spent because deflation because Krugman and the mass media said..."