"I am confident that the Fed would take whatever means necessary to prevent significant deflation in the United States, and, moreover, that the US central bank, in cooperation with other parts of the government as needed, has sufficient policy instruments to ensure that any deflation that might occur would be both mild and brief. …[U]nder a fiat (that is, paper) money system, a government (in practice, the central bank in cooperation with other agencies) should always be able to generate increased nominal spending and inflation, even when the short-term nominal interest rate is zero. … [T]he US government has a technology, called a printing press (or today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many US dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost."

– Ben S. Bernanke, National Economists Club, 2002

Emphasis: Mine