[dirtboy]

Please don’t forget that in 1913 our economy began to change from one that was based on gold to one that is based on paper...& President Nixon finished it off, in 1971 (???), by eliminating the Gold Standard.

There were depressions and panics prior to that - some very bad ones.

[djsherin]

There was also fractional reserve banking prior to that. The country was never on a true gold standard. Artificial money creation was harder when the dollar was tied to gold, but it still happened.