Why did the US stop exchanging paper dollarsfor gold and silver in 1971after printing morewithout raising taxesto pay for Vietnam and socialized benefit programs?

Government spending is the ultimate tax on the economy

 

 Milton Friedman

Economic Nobel Laureate

 

Why does the latest chart

only go to October, 2007?

 

Does earn today, spend tomorrow

conflict with borrow to spend today

 and hope to earn enough tomorrow

or that someone else does?

 

Little by little, business is enlarged with easy money

 

With the exhaustless reservoir

of the Government of the United States

 furnishing easy money

the sales increase, the businesses enlarge,

more new enterprises are started

the spirit of optimism pervades the community

 

Everyone is making money

everyone is growing rich

 

It goes up and up

…until finally someone whose judgment was bad

someone whose capacity for business was small

 breaks

 and as he falls he hits the next brick in the row

 and then another

… and down comes the whole structure

 

That is what happened to greater or less degree

before the panic of 1837, of 1857

 of 1873, of 1893 and of 1907

 

Elihu Root

US Senator, Nobel Laureate