The shrinking dollar

Somewhat unfairly, the chart attributes the dollar's decline to the day forty years ago when President Nixon "closed the gold window" and made the dollar what economists call a fiat currency. Lewis Lehrman has a good op-ed on the subject in today's WSJ. Personally, I date the decline a bit earlier, as starting in the 1950s, and the result even shabbier: those 1950 dollars were each worth ten of ours. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford