Stuff like that is misleading. There is FAR FAR more to the monetary control debate than "zomg the dollar is worth only a fraction of what it was!!!" Charts like that designed to get an emotional reaction out of people that don't think. Without even getting into details, just consider for a second that in 1900 people worked for pennies an hour. So, yes, the dollar was worth more, but that's only a tiny part of the story. You can't just look at relative value of a dollar and ignore all other factors.
I understand that it is a complex issue and that wages were lower in the 1900s than they are now, but the decline in the purchasing power of the dollar still means something. I want to learn more about the complex issues and discuss them with people. I'm willing to discuss them with you if you are interested.
The best place to start is to ask yourself... lost purchasing power against what? Who decided where to set the $1 baseline on that chart and what are they using to consider how value has fluctuated? It seems like they've used gold (no surprise there). Is a speculative metal like gold the best thing to use to determine relative purchasing power of the dollar? Why not use eggs, milk, iron, corn, sheep, oil, etc.?
A loaf of bread cost $0.05 1930 and it costs $3.00 today, but is that the whole story? $0.05 was a couple hours' wage back in 1930. $3.00 is less than half of minimum hourly wage today. So yea, you could purchase a nice car for $2,500 back in the day, but that was a year's salary for many people. So were people really better off when the dollar's purchasing power was higher? Obviously a good bit of that chart is exaggeration and hyperbole, because the average American wasn't exactly rolling in wealth when the dollar was at its supposed peak.
The dollar's purchasing power is entirely relative. If real wages increase at the same rate the dollar declines in value, then the decline isn't really a big deal - stuff costs more, but everyone makes more. If real wages increase at a slower rate than the dollar declines (or decline themselves), then we've got issues. Obviously that's only the tip of the iceberg (foreign trade really messes everything up), but it's a good place to start to decide whether the decline is of concern or not.