The End of the Fiat Currency Experiment, in Seven Charts
Anyone with a grasp of human nature in 1971 would have understood that giving governments monetary printing presses untethered to anything real would produce a world awash in debt. And that’s exactly what we got:
For a sense of the scale we’re now working with, consider the concept of “trillion”:
A million seconds ago was May 23rd
A billion seconds ago was 1993
A trillion seconds ago was 30,000 B.C.
The US national debt is now rising by $1 trillion every six months.
As for gold, humanity’s base money for the three millennia preceding 1971, note how its dollar price has tracked US government debt over the past half-century. And this chart only runs through 2023. Adding the most recent 18 months would make it even more dramatic.
The gold/debt relationship isn’t just a US phenomenon. Incrementum calculates that gold is rising even faster against other currencies:
Same thing for silver:
Stampede Into Physical
Another thing our hypothetical 1971 observer would have expected is a rush into physical precious metals when unbacked fiat currencies started declining uncontrollably. That, too, is happening, as bullion deliveries from the Comex (a futures exchange not designed to be a source of physical metal) soar:
Now It’s the Miners’ Turn
The move into physical metals initially left the mining stocks behind. Note how the GDX and GDXJ, which contain the major gold miners, have lagged the metal in this cycle:
That’s changing, as FOMO (fear of missing out) erupts in precious metals. 2025 has been nice so far, with GDX up by 52%. But it’s just a taste of what’s coming.
"giving governments monetary printing presses untethered to anything real..." Not quite.
The Federal Reserve has the monetary printing press, but it is not part of the US Government.
The FED operates independently and in secret. Look it up.
We found out long after the fact that The FED created and handed out 14 TRILLION DOLLARS to foreign banks in 2008/9.
Successful money systems are controlled by public institutions, not by secretive banking cartels.
A Gold Standard is no guarantee of a stable money system.
Money is like a ticket that is accepted for payment of debts and taxes. It doesn't need to be made of something valuable like gold and silver. It needs to be backed by the rule of law. It needs to be managed by an ACCOUNTABLE institution.
With the power to print money in private hands, the money system benefits those private hands first and foremost.
The US Constitution gives Congress the power to coin money and set the value thereof. The reason being that Congress people must stand for election every 2 or 6 years and can be held accountable for their monetary choices. In theory at least.
Our current money system gives control of money (and therefore government) to the banksters.
The inevitable fiat implosion will certainly be one for the history books and, tragically, profoundly painful for many who worked hard and lived responsibly. Will human society ever learn?