<quote http://countrystudies.us/united-states/economy-12.htm>
Inflation: A rate of increase in the general price level of all goods and services. (This should not be confused with increases in the prices of specific goods relative to the prices of other goods.)
This is simple, I just started playing agian after over 2 years of not. I've seen a good 300-400% increase in the price of everything. I am not dealing in high end merchandise but from where i sit as a sub level 10 person with 20k in my bank already from some semi-light farming its not soo bad LOL. I remember when 20k was a lot, but then agian silk sold for 1k per spool then too. In short its a lot easier for the lower levels to make money now than it used to be.
Now my thoughts on how to deflate the economy, destroy the money LOL plain and simple the value of a gil is deturmined by how many gil are in the game total. It has nothing to do with gil sellers or gil buyers, they existed 2 years ago and we didn't have these issues.
Buy from NPC's if they are cheaper, I am currently buying an item from an NPC and reselling it for double my money at a decently quick rate. This is doing 2 things 1 its destroying money cause the money i spend to the NPC is out of circulation, 2 its making me rich which i won't complain about 200% gain on a couple hours of letting something sit in the AH is good for me.
Have people become stupid? I remember when I used to play we'd research items check NPC prices, try to bid 1 gil 10 gil 100 gil before we'd even try to get close to the current selling price. I picked up a shortbow this morning for 100 gil current selling price is 1000 gil. I've sold several items at a couple hundred gil less than the current AH price and still gotten the current price. The cause of the skyrocketing prices is because people aren't thrifty anymore. That could be a gil buyers fault they didnt farm 1000000 hours to get that money and they don't care as much about it.
In short the way to fix the economy is to do those 2 things, destroy money and be thrifty.
*shrugs* i'm going to enjoy making a killing off stupid low level stuff before you guys figure out how to make everything deflate LOL