A STABLE DOLLAR DELIVERS ECONOMIC STIMULUS

摘要

For 182 years, from 1789 to 1971, the United States embraced the principle of stable money-in practice, a gold standard system. During that time it rose from a not-very-promising experiment in government to a global superpower. The U.S. was the most successful country of the 19th and 20th centuries. The last two decades of the gold standard era, the 1950s and 1960s, were especially prosperous. The middle class achieved an unprecedented level of material affluence. Over the 42 years leading to the end of the Bretton Woods gold standard system in 1971-even beginning in the rather inauspicious year of 1929-per capita GDP, as measured in ounces of gold, rose by 223%.