People in countries that had inflation problems had ways to cope: back in the 80s when inflation was high there were money market funds that paid interest that kept up with inflation, for example. The baby boomers got rich because they could pay back their loans with cheap money. Inflation helps debtors. On the other hand, deflation destroys economies as it gets people with money hoarding it. If you look at times in history when national currencies we're going up in value those are exactly the times when the economy was collapsing.