Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who has been accused by many of setting the stage for an inflationaryspiral through his asset purchase programs or QE (quantitative easing), recently said he has the best inflation record of any Fed chief in the post-war era.
This is probably a good thing as the vicious circle of stated inflation driving an inflationaryspiral is often the reason for inflation itself, yet below the headlines inflation is just a process of too much money in the system.
In short, the economy then was limping because the dollar was in an inflationaryspiral downward, and its descent led to the relative starvation of economic innovators.
The good news from the deflationary trend, of course, is that it makes it unlikely the Fed will raise interest rates here, and almost guarantees that the U.S. economy wont go into an inflationaryspiral.