Economically speaking, the markets seek equilibrium. That is to say that the supply and demand (if graphed) should cross at some point and that is the point where people are willing to pay x price for a product, and the companies are willing or able to produce x amount of the product. The .gov has been artificially creating inflation for so long (and indeed hyper-inflation in recent years) to create the perception of a growing economy. Finally the natural forces of the market have essentially overpowered the government's ability to keep prices high, and now they must come down. People were running out of money, they couldn't afford $4.00 gas, so they quit buying. There may have been many other smaller causes as well, but most of those were "domino effect" results of the government f**king with the markets against the will of the market...its kinda like the government has been trying to pump 500 psi into a normal car tire and it was fairly obvious that it had to blow sometime.

When it is all done deflating, I'm quite positive the process will repeat itself because the government and sheeple have a remarkable inability to learn from mistakes.

Edit:
On the other hand, is this really a "mistake" on the part of the government?...or just a part of their Master Plan for tyranny?...hmmm