> QE's massive inflation of asset prices; it is now harder and harder and harder to beat the market

This is a really interesting theory that I’ve never heard before, but it makes sense. Does that imply deflation could instead encourage innovation?

Maybe, maybe not, but it would be a very painful way to do it (particularly since the average person has debt, owns some assets, but doesn't park huge sums in savings accounts or cash under the mattress like prior generations did).

The general proposal to alleviate this problem is to increase the supply of assets. This means investing in the common good. Basic research to create whole new types of things to build, infrastructure to enable businesses to reach new markets, and workforce development so businesses have more effective employees.

This is also often coupled with renewed enforcement of antitrust legislation, to give new players some oxygen and to discourage business models that rely on unprofitable scaling in order to reap monopolistic rewards. Then there is the side benefit that smaller companies have a harder time creating the conditions for regulatory capture.

The largest economic expansions tend to be preceded by really painful destruction of wealth and savings (Great Depression and WWII preceding postwar booms, the largest US economic expansion in history preceded by a decades-long oil crisis)

I could see that. As money becomes more valuable, it becomes harder and harder to get. People have to become more and more clever to keep getting it.

The only real problem is that if you screw up the mix, massive deflation has some really horrible downsides.