Fifteen Cent Dollars, Part 3

There is no way to understand the virulent all sectors inflation that has overcome the American economy apart from the fulcrum financial event of modern times. That is, Richard Nixon’s scrapping of the Bretton Woods monetary arrangement and the dollar’s last link to gold at Camp David in August 1971.

From a bird’s eye perspective, the resulting devastating hit to the purchasing power of the dollar speaks for itself. The dollar of August 1971 is worth just 15 cents today and that won’t buy you a paper cup, let alone the coffee to fill it.