zlacker

>>gmays+(OP)
The chart is just another "wtf happened in 1971" moment.

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

What happened in 1971? The Nixon Shock, which is when the dollar stopped being convertible to gold after it became evident that the US did not have the gold it claimed to have.

>>29athr+U7
Sorry but it's a lot less conspirational than that. The early 70s is when the long post-war economic boom ended, and corporate profits globally began to contract for an extended period of time, long wave decline. Along with it came a longer term trend of declining take-home earning rights, a huge decline in unionization, waves of inflation followed by severe recessions, etc.

The gold standard stuff is hilariously reductionist.

>>cmrdpo+Ya
I agree, at least partially. The U.S. had half the world's GDP at the end of WWII, most other advanced economies had their manufacturing base bombed to smithereens. The couple decades after the war were boom times in the U.S. And an anomaly. This was surely one of the bigger factors amid several.