ktc,
re: "Compared to a 23 percent increase in the money supply that funded the prosperous 1950s, the Fed allowed money to expand 44 percent in the 1960s and 78 percent in the 1970s"
In the 1950s, the dollars being printed were still, to a pretty good extent, backed. (Roosevelt had barred Americans from cashing in their dollars, but he hadn't barred the rest of the world from doing so.)
By the 1960s, the U.S. was financing Vietnam by printing dollars without adequate backing. It began to balk at letting foreigners (France, in particular) redeem their accumulated dollars. And in 1971, Nixon put an end to the notion of backed money for good.
Because of this, you can't compare the 1950s to today and draw a meaningful conclusion. A currency expansion that occurs when currency is backed means that the economy is booming. It means that productivity is on the uptick. More money means more of the backing material (gold) socked away in the national vaults.
A currency expansion that occurs when currency is unbacked, however, means that COUNTERFEITING is on the uptick. Nothing good comes of that.
Gold is $1,581/oz today. When it hits $2,000, it will be up 26.5%. Let's see how long that takes. - De 3/11/2013 - ANSWER: 7 Years, 5 Months
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