Stagnant Real Wages in America
NY Times had a story The Economics of Henry Ford May Be Passé where they provide the chart below that shows how average hourly wages for workers who are in the bottom 80% of income have stagnated in the last 30 or so years, after going up steadily for decades.
Nixon abandoned the convertibility of US dollar to gold in 1971, which matches pretty well with the stagnation seen in that graph. I am sure mainstream economists will have their complicated explanations, including rising oil prices, globalization, what have you. And I am sure gold is a barbarous relic that has nothing do with stagnating wages. After all, their equations work perfectly with any form of money, including money made from thin air. Except that in the real world, abandoning gold has had consequences. To repeat myself, the road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but it is usually paved by macro-economists.