Rising Prices Are Bad, but Plummeting Prices Are Worse: Americans may envy China’s deflation. They shouldn’t (CW: The Atlantic)

Living in China is getting cheaper. Because rents in my neighborhood in central Beijing are dropping, my wife and I pressed our landlord to reduce ours by $140 a month in a new lease that we signed last month. He wasn’t too happy about it, but he’s lucky that we didn’t move out. Given the desperation of local landlords, we probably could’ve saved another $500 a month had we switched to a comparable apartment nearby.

BUT AT WHAT COST?