A nation is only as strong as its currency, and fiat currencies are the epitome of weak. From Matthew Piepenburg at vongreyerz.gold:
Fifty-four years ago (August 15, 1971), Nixon took the USD off its gold standard, thereby officially putting the final nail in the Constitutionally mandated concept of US money.
But hey, at least the Constitution can still serve as a nice museum piece for kids to walk past.
Lies from on High
Back in 1971, the lies from on high (which are nothing new to any sophisticated and critically thinking citizen) were at full swing.
Nixon got on live TV and promised us the decoupling was “only temporary” (sound familiar?) and that “your dollar will be worth just as much tomorrow as today.”
But the fibbing did not start or end there.
Prior to the decoupling of August 15, the Treasury Secretary and Fed officials were making the case that gold was actually holding the dollar down and that decoupling gold would strengthen the dollar going forward, while gold’s value would, in fact, fall.
Hmmm.
Facts from Math…
A little fact-checking may be worth a smirk here…
First, the decoupling from gold has lasted more than half a century, so it hardly feels “temporary.”
As for the USD holding its purchasing power, well, when measured against a milligram of gold, that paper dollar has lost > 99% of its value since 1971.
Meanwhile, and contrary to the expert hearing testimony of a 1971 Fed Chairman and Treasury Secretary, gold has not gone down in price, but has risen, by well… 8000%.
EIGHT THOUSAND PERCENT.
Huh?
What the Heck?
How was this possible? What did gold do in the last 54 years?
In fact, gold did very little.
But the dollar, now unfettered by its Constitutionally mandated gold-backing, got very, very, very busy multiplying (i.e., debasing) itself to pay for just criminally negligent deficit-spending.
Like a teenager with dad’s Amex, the debt and spend addiction of US “leadership” was officially born on August 15, 1971 –the very same day the USD’s death spiral began.
Don’t want to believe me? Don’t see the correlation?
Here’s another stubborn fact: In 1971, US public (governmental debt) was $ $398B.
As of this writing, that number has skyrocketed to $37.2T in the literal course of my lifetime…
What a stout system the Founder Fathers built withstanding the Federal Reserve and Tricky Dick taking the money off of the gold standard.
How’s that Fort Knox gold audit coming along?
I’ll be lounging in the tall grass.