For those of us born during that period, or later, inflation per se has never been a notable feature in our lives, at least not the way it was for my parents' generation. As they were trying to build families and careers, interest rates in the UK were on their way to a peak of 17 per cent in April 1980, prompting recession and mass unemployment - few companies here are cutting jobs today in the same way that entire industries were being decimated in the 1970s, even if hiring and investment are still somewhat weak.
In the US, the Misery Index was conceived by economist and advisor to President Lyndon Johnson, Arthur Okun, to illustrate the social costs of this inflation and the resulting unemployment. His version simply adds the two figures together, and hit a peak of nearly 22 under Jimmy Carter in the 1970s - few look back fondly at that period of enormous upheaval.
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) calculates its Misery Index slightly differently, adding inflation, interest and employment rates and subtracting the annual percentage change in real GDP per capita. By its calculations there are currently 28 of the countries surveyed whose Misery Index stands above the US's peak figure. South America is particularly well represented, afflicted by high inflation and borrowing costs. Southern European economies notably feature, too, the lasting victms of the credit crisis. And in Europe, it is kick-starting growth and reducing unemployment that remains the most intractable problem.
The same is true of Japan, which sits at the foot of the Misery Index with a score of just 5.4 per cent. And while on the face of it an environment like Japan's in which prices fall may not seem much to worry about, an economy suffering deflation will increase the real value of the debt within it. That's a worry because, as the latest Geneva report, "Deleveraging? What Deleveraging", shows, there are record levels of that swishing around the global economy still. The figures it published this week are truly frightening, with debt rising from 180 per cent of output in 2008 to 212 per cent in 2013.
That's one reason why I happen to think that both authors of our debate are correct this week. We will experience a deflationary environment for a while, encouraging stimulus to further boost asset prices. But financial repression will ultimately prove the only way for central bankers to tackle the world's problematic mountains of debt - including unsustainable borrowing by Chinese local governments. In the long run that suggests rumours of inflation's death have been greatly exaggerated.
