The Failure of Money
Since the end of the Gold Standard in 1971, the US dollar has lost over 80 percent of its purchasing power due to the uninhibited money creation of the Federal Reserve. Fiat currency, a system by which a currency only retains its value by “fiat” or decree by a government, leaves a central bank free to create money from thin air, reducing the value of the currency already in circulation.
Fiat currency has reigned in the last forty years, but every fiat currency that has existed in history has eventually failed. A study of 775 fiat currencies indicates the average life expectancy of fiat currencies is 27 years, with some taking a month to crash and others surviving for centuries.
The two longest-surviving currencies are the British Pound and the US Dollar, both of which have lost the vast majority of their original value. The US is also deeply in debt, which encourages it to inflate its currency in order to reduce the dollar-value of that debt. Will the dollar beat the odds and survive? If it fails, what comes next?
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