Is inflation or deflation the biggest threat to the global economy?

House prices are falling and retail sales are down, which signals deflation. But raw materials prices are soaring, and that spells inflation. Whichever we end up with, it’s going to be nasty.

I really wouldn't like to be the man in charge of sorting out the UK economy today.

Almost every piece of economic data so far this week has been as bad as it could be. House prices are falling and retail sales are down. In the normal way of things, that spells deflation. But raw materials prices are soaring, and that spells inflation.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.