the dollar started as a receipt for gold thus its value was the same as the value of gold you could get for it.
over time to finance public works and war the government started printing more dollars and eventually had to give less and less gold per dollar in existence (they couldn't print gold to back up the paper).
eventually in 1971 the government had so little gold and so much paper in circulation that it had to stop redeeming paper for gold altogether.
since then more and more paper was printed the the purchasing power is declining ever since.
No it didn't. The dollar was merely a weight of silver. Later on they fixed a specific silver to gold ratio, which led to redefining the dollar in terms of gold. The government has always fucked around with what money was, namely in the interests of the usury(capitalist) class centered in New York. Gold was replaced with the government bond as a "risk free asset". Essentially the Fed and the Treasury began engaging in check kiting in the 1920's. By the 70's this scheme was fully accepted.
"Fiat" is not really fiat. It is in places like Zimbabwe, however in the US it is credit money. Every single credit dollar in existence is backed by collateral. The federal reserve asset column consists of mainly US government bonds. What are US government bonds? These are future claims on the sweat equity of 310 million Americans. So every dollar the fed lends into existence is collateralized by the future productivity of American's which will be extracted via taxation. Now ask yourself, does future productivity have "intrinsic value"? Of course it does.
Do you understand this concept? It is not by decree. It is not by coercion. It is by DEBT. The collateral "backing" the credit(dollars) gives them value. If the collateral is of poor or dubious quality the value of the dollars decreases(inflation). Total debt + interest also exceeds available dollar credits in existence, this places an almost perpetual BID for them. Someone in the economy is constantly in need of dollars to repay old debts.
Commercial banks essentially produce dollar derivatives. They lend out claims to federal reserve dollars, every-time you get a loan for XYZ. What are those claims backed by? The collateral you post(house, car) and your sweat equity(income). When these institutions engage in counterfeiting of credit you get inflation.
For this system to work it requires perpetual economic growth, as new wealth must act as collateral for new loans. Hence the obsession with constant GDP expansion. Obviously, this is impossible. The economy never grows as fast as the rate of interest. This places a certain class of people(usury) to essentially rent seek. When the economy can no longer produce new wealth fast enough they simply begin recollateralizing existing assets. Ie homes, stocks, education, sweat equity gets revalued(hence inflation occurs). Anything that can be borrowed against must rise in price in perpetuity to expand the total debt pool. When this system begins breaking down 2008 happens.
Hyperdeflation will occur before hyperinflation.
The end game is when you cannot trade a US government bond for gold. Meaning there is no exchange rate between Gold and US treasuries. No bid. That is when the credit dollar system implodes. We are still far away from this scenario, and it does not have to happen. Also since the majority of global fiat currencies are pyramided off of the dollar, the USD will be the LAST to fail. So betting on the US dollar to collapse, you won't survive the journey.
Bitcoin will also be next to worthless under this scenario. Why? Because bitcoin requires a sophisticated civilized society to function. It requires electricity, high bandwith, communication, smart phone networks. Under a fiat collapse trade essentially grinds to a halt, multilateral trade turns into bilateral trade ie BARTER. The last thing people will be concerned about will be some virtual units on the internet that have no value outside of their exchange. All of you hoping on a fiat collapse, are essentially cheering on your own misery.
