A new poll finds most U.S. adults think personal choices are a major driver of poverty and homelessness, while fewer blame a lack of government support.
In a nutshell, the Fed dropped the gold standard. Once money didn’t need to be backed by gold there was no incentive to keep its value relative to the market. If an ounce of gold bought say… a ton of steel (it’s worth a bit more than that, but let’s go with it), then the equivalent amount of dollars would also be worth that same ton of steel, regardless of other market pressures. Nixon unpinned the value of the dollar from the value of gold in 1971 instead allowing it to have market value relative to, well, whatever. The value of the USD immediately plummeted and never recovered.
Gold isn’t any particularly good thing to base your currency on and the value of the dollar vs an ounce of gold reduced over the decades, but unpinning it completely but still keeping the fractional reserve system of finance doomed the country to endless inflation and national debt. All of a sudden the Federal Reserve banks didn’t have to store tons and tons of gold to back the dollar, and they became free to lend the US government as much money as it asked for. Because the United States Treasury may print the money, but we borrow it from the Federal Reserve with interest. That’s nothing new, but at least pinning the value to gold limited how much we could borrow.
OK that was a lot more than I meant to say but I hope it makes sense. Once all that money flooded the market, the capitalists were allowed to go crazy and milk the nation and the proletariat for all we’re worth. That and now the United States Dollar is just yet another open market commodity. Buy low, sell high. bleed the value in the process.
In a nutshell, the Fed dropped the gold standard. Once money didn’t need to be backed by gold there was no incentive to keep its value relative to the market. If an ounce of gold bought say… a ton of steel (it’s worth a bit more than that, but let’s go with it), then the equivalent amount of dollars would also be worth that same ton of steel, regardless of other market pressures. Nixon unpinned the value of the dollar from the value of gold in 1971 instead allowing it to have market value relative to, well, whatever. The value of the USD immediately plummeted and never recovered.
Gold isn’t any particularly good thing to base your currency on and the value of the dollar vs an ounce of gold reduced over the decades, but unpinning it completely but still keeping the fractional reserve system of finance doomed the country to endless inflation and national debt. All of a sudden the Federal Reserve banks didn’t have to store tons and tons of gold to back the dollar, and they became free to lend the US government as much money as it asked for. Because the United States Treasury may print the money, but we borrow it from the Federal Reserve with interest. That’s nothing new, but at least pinning the value to gold limited how much we could borrow.
OK that was a lot more than I meant to say but I hope it makes sense. Once all that money flooded the market, the capitalists were allowed to go crazy and milk the nation and the proletariat for all we’re worth. That and now the United States Dollar is just yet another open market commodity. Buy low, sell high. bleed the value in the process.