<But why must an individual pay off his debt?>
do you know what a loan shark is,or maybe better yet a debt collection agency is? if people do not pay off their debt there is a certain penalty that goes along with it. Furthermore the fact that people collect too much debt in the first place on large scales suggests the not everyone can accurately predict inflation and deflation.
Boohoo?
No, it suggests that (a) creditors are lowering risk standards, and (b) debtors are subsidized. Both are purposeful government policies, and an outcome of fiat currency/central banking. This will become clearer when EVERYONE is a debtor, and the government (via inflation, through the banking system) is the only creditor.
Wages/prices are no more sticky on their way down than on their way up. If you are an employee, sure you are hesitant to have your wage lowered. On the other hand if you are a manager or some sort of business owner you are also hesitant to let your costs go up (from your employees asking for raises, or from your raw material costs going up). There is no deducable reason for price deflation to be worse than price inflation, especially once people get used to it and understand why it happens.
Obviously you only understand hackneyed stereotypes; please watch “The Ascent of Money” - you can even get it free off of google video and put it on an iPod.
//There is no deducable reason for price deflation to be worse than price inflation, especially once people get used to it and understand why it happens.//
inflation is a not a problem unless all real wages do not rise with the price increases. The logic behind this is simple because even if prices began to rise in nominal terms it does not mean that wages are not keeping up in real terms. Inflation does become a problem though if wages remain stagnant or lower while prices are increasing.
inflation must hamper real wage growth. this is because it corrodes incentives, in addition it stealth wealth from capitalists, this encourages consumption of capitalists, there is reduction of division of labour, public spending crowds out private etc.etc.etc. end result theres less productive private capital about, so dmvp of labour falls. i.e. real wages.