"Everyone loves an early inflation. The effects at the beginning of inflation are all good. There is steepened money expansion, rising government spending, increased government budget deficits, booming stock markets, and spectacular general prosperity, all in the midst of temporarily stable prices. Everyone benefits, and no-one pays. That is the early part of the cycle. In the later inflation, on the other hand, the effects are all bad. The government may steadily increase the money inflation in order to stave off the latter effects, but the latter effects patiently wait. In the terminal inflation, there is faltering prosperity, tightness of money, falling stock markets, rising taxes, still larger government deficits, and still roaring money expansion, now accompanied by soaring prices and an ineffectiveness of all traditional remedies. Everyone pays and no-one benefits. That is the full cycle of every inflation."
- Jens O. Parssons, 'Dying of Money: Lessons of the Great German & American Inflations'.

David Fuller's view Did we experience an early inflation in the years leading up to 2007-2008? Time will tell but the conditions described by Jens Parssons above are not dissimilar. Today, more financial commentators are worried about deflation than inflation. However, we have also seen the inflationary risks most governments have been willing to take in their efforts to prevent a Japan-style deflation or worse.

I commend the rest of Tim Price's report to you, not least "the tipping point for a country" in terms of external debts relative to GDP and exports, as reported by professors Rogoff and Reinhart in their book: This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly.