After today's financial economics class, students should be suitably traumatised to accept this graph without tears flowing. You are looking at capacity utilisation in the USA. This is an important thing to look at, because capacity utilisation measured how productive resources like factories, businesses, and labour, are being used. Or not, as the graph shows us. The reason the capacity utilisation is relative to the CPI is for comparison, but also to show the possibility of deflation in the USA is real and pressing.
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