The Federal government became addicted to inflating its way out of deficit spending. Of course, this will only work so long. With the present Regime hellbent on spending and Yellen & Company unwilling to raise interest rates, something has to give. Having a nest egg in some form of gold can't be a bad thing, unless of course, Dear Leader goes all FDR and starts confiscating it.

Not much to see here... the 1% prior to the 1930's were the robber barons which essentially controlled monopolies on raw materials and transportation. By the 1930s, there was growing competition and automation demanded more people - then of course WWI and WWII hit and pounded the wealthy pretty hard with taxation...

Going off the gold standard, may have had an impact... but by 1984 the stock market also went on a run that essentially lifted the US economy by 500 - 600%.

These days, the spending power of just the federal government's revenues are far more than the size of the entire economy in the 60's I would think.

I'm not a fan of inflation, but I'm saying there are a heck of a lot of factors that go into that time period and not just the affect of a single action.

The erosion of the lower & middle class has been much more greatly impacted by the US not being "the world's economy" anymore as we were in the 60's & 70's. You have to realize, all of Asia and Europe were decimated in WWII. Heck, China wasn't even out of the dark ages yet in the 1970s.

I love it when someone takes something that has little more than a placebo affect and holds it up to be "the smoking gun" without mentioning the other 15,000 variables.

Period of inflation and exportation of our industrial base began after leaving the gold standard, which should also be factored in. Fivedollargold is obviously interested in this topic.

Groovy chart, kids... and calling the last chart the key one is, even for NPR, a nice case for post hoc, ergo propter hoc, ain't it?

ONE key marker on that graph?: Nixon kills the Gold Backing?

Just MAYBE there were other key turning points somewhere along the way? Include total workforce union membership percentage as another line?

Hell, I joined the workforce in 1968 and left it in 2002... and there were some interesting inflection points and crossovers around THOSE two dates, too!

Anyone up to blame ME for the shape of those two lines on that Key Graph?

Piffle!

Gold and silver have been used as mediums of exchange for thousands of years. You can mine a little more of it, but you can't print it.

Gold stays the same, dollars change.

You just can't use gold or silver for that matter as a medium of exchange so why own it as a hedge against inflation.

the one problem with a Gold standard is, the banks and 1% would hoard it. And money would be scarce. One option could be money based solely on Government income. This would require the reduction of Fed Reserve notes by "real" money over time. Anything is better then the HIT we are going to take shortly!

when I was a kid, I took a dollar bill into a bank and
asked for gold in exchange. . they looked at me
like I was from another planet. . it was 1960. -- j

Because the Gold Standard cannot, as easily, be manipulated!

Emeralds appear to be a good hedge too

The key to the problem is: correctly identifying the professions of the top one-percent. They are the very central bankers who set up the system, going clear back to the Bank of England at the time of William and Mary.

I was looking at the charts, and I do not see the correlation of Gold Standard vs. the 90% or the 1 %.

Their charts are a decade off from the rise. I think I would look at the Governments Banking regulations. THEN do a correlation.