Only for a bit - then when the panic subsides it gets nice again for awhile. You're also referencing a time when the dollar was backed by something... Now it's not backed by anything but our good word that it has value.
When there isn't anything backing it - the continued printing of money makes it worth less and less and thus so do the prices increase and increase.
So if prices suddenly reset back to 1998 prices & we burned 75 percent of the currency - there would be a panic, a time of economic downfall & it would eventually just work out to start a new economic bubble that eventually bursts too.
