Yet it is the reason government spending has blown past budgetary constraints, revenue downturns, and public outrage since the last check on Federal Reserve dollar-printing ended in 1971 with the demise of the Bretton Woods gold exchange standard.

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When President Nixon blew up the Bretton Woods gold standard, he performed the monetary equivalent of transforming the dollar from a Mercedes S-Class into a Ford Pinto.

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Before that time, it was basically clear that outside of wartime (when gold-standard conventions were often suspended), you could basically count on the dollar holding its value against major things like the consumer price level, foreign currencies, and commodities such as gold itself.

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Actually, the closest the world came to the restoration of the pre-1914 gold standard began with the Roosevelt move in 1934, resuming an international guarantee of the dollar at a fixed price in gold.

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