I understand all of that.  The point I'm making is that that article could have been published 4 years ago, and, in fact, people did write such things 4 years ago, and 3 years ago, and 2 years ago, and last year.  And, yet, it seems, at least anecdotally, that spending has not stagnated.  What I'm suggesting is that we don't need to speculate about future values.  We already have a history of deflation and possible increased spending to explain, which runs contrary to the deflationary argument.