WTF Happened In 1971 ?!!!

Posted by Aeronca 11 hours, 42 minutes ago to Economics
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In short, this is a visual argument that "everything broke in 1971" because the US abandoned the gold standard, with a large gallery of charts to illustrate the supposed before-and-after divergence across many indicators.

The central point and thesis of this website is that 1971 marked a major inflection point where many positive long-term trends (productivity-wage growth alignment, affordable housing, stable inequality, shorter workweeks, family formation, etc.) reversed or stagnated, leading to many of the perceived problems of modern society. The site presents dozens of overlaid graphs where trends were relatively smooth or improving for decades/centuries prior to ~1971, then sharply bend, flatten, or worsen afterward.

The primary cause it highlights is President Nixon's 1971 decision (the "Nixon Shock") to end the convertibility of the US dollar into gold, effectively terminating the Bretton Woods system and ushering in the era of fully fiat currency (unbacked paper money with no gold standard constraint).

The site demonstrates that removing this monetary anchor enabled unlimited money printing, inflation, financialization, wealth inequality, wage stagnation relative to productivity, skyrocketing asset prices (housing, stocks), and broader societal issues like declining marriage/birth rates, longer work hours, and more.
SOURCE URL: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/


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  • Posted by 11 hours, 36 minutes ago
    I love this website. If you study the charts, you can see how "free" money has affected us deeply in personal, social ways, not just economic.
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