Why? Currently, people are essentially paying the US government to keep their money for them. Eventually inflation will rise, as all cyclic quantities have ups and downs. But out of hand? I doubt it. Krugman loves to point out that unemployment is the crisis we are in. Not inflation. Unemployment won't get fixed until demand is fixed. And demand won't get fixed until the middle class has money to spend. And they don't have money to spend, because they're buried in debt. And they can't get out of debt, because saving money in bank right now is the same or worse (when you consider bank fees) than stuffing money under your mattress. Inflation may help us to turn our incomes up a bit, as savings and wages inflate. We've been borderline deflating for several years now, but the Fed won't touch interest rates because they're scared of the conservative talk radio inflation hawks who have taken to shouting about inflation due to the quantitative easing policy. The only problem is that this inflation, well, doesn't exist, and there's 0 (zero, as in none, not even a little) evidence that its coming soon.I am under the assumption that inflation will come in the US and that it might get out of hand for a bit.
I suppose that I am assuming that QE and the longterm pinning of interest rates near zero will eventually lead to excess liquidity. Not only is the Fed printing money in the form of T-notes with little to no interest owed, but many many home owners are refinancing at ridiculously low rates. It won't take much of a recovery to convert those mortgages into losing propositions on the balance sheet for banks. I assume that their move at that point will be to shove as much money they can into their investment wing, but acting as herd, the more they do it, the more difficult it will be to make up for the loss on those mortgages. I could very well be wrong here. But that's more-or-less my line of thinking.