When would you date the beginning of the current fall though? Late 20th/early 21st century? When would you end date it without longer hindsight? (honest question)
The fall of the Bretton Woods system was inevitable due to trade imbalances that ballooned in the 1960s. The U.S. Dollar was pegged to an artificially high value and the French central bank was right to arbitrage it by withdrawing specie. Simply resetting all the exchange rates was not sufficient, especially since the Federal Reserve under Nixon continued inflating the currency. The need to have variable rates was decades in the making.
When I think of the current social and political trends, I'm reminded of Asimov's quote about anti-intellectualism in 1980. Or Douglas Hofstadter's Pulitzer-prize winning book, "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life", published in *1963*.
These things aren't new. They just wax and wane in power, over time, and recombine in new and interesting ways to yield long-term trends.
When would you date the beginning of the current fall though? Late 20th/early 21st century? When would you end date it without longer hindsight? (honest question)
1970 or so. There is this version of it
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
Certainly the fall of the Breton Woods monetary system was part of it.
The fall of the Bretton Woods system was inevitable due to trade imbalances that ballooned in the 1960s. The U.S. Dollar was pegged to an artificially high value and the French central bank was right to arbitrage it by withdrawing specie. Simply resetting all the exchange rates was not sufficient, especially since the Federal Reserve under Nixon continued inflating the currency. The need to have variable rates was decades in the making.
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Kinda hard to pin down a date.
When I think of the current social and political trends, I'm reminded of Asimov's quote about anti-intellectualism in 1980. Or Douglas Hofstadter's Pulitzer-prize winning book, "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life", published in *1963*.
These things aren't new. They just wax and wane in power, over time, and recombine in new and interesting ways to yield long-term trends.