and included with fuel in items that economists don't worry about price drops (excluded from core inflation for this reason). If food, fuel and other highly variable price items fall enough to cause overall price deflation for long periods you can get long-term issues. Japan has struggled with deflation related issues for decades. Japan has had deflation most years since the late 90s and never had more than 3 consecutive years without deflation in that period. 2022 was only the 3rd year since 1998 that inflation was above 1%. This has caused all kinds of issues in Japan.