Consumer Price Index: 1800 - 2005

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/570/cpi18002005.png

And you didn't think that inflation was spiraling out of control, did you?

everyone who knows me knows i have always loved the modern age

also, next is the avg wages index, right?

I think we'd need Tufte to make that one look right.

One of the big political issues in the 1970s was inflation. Reagan is thought to have gotten inflation under control.

the good thing is that computers cause people to make a lot of money really fast

logarithmic y-axis would be better

Someone who uses copy machines please to kindly explain how and why that black line is misleading.

Um, I know! Mr. Mustard in the Den with the Rope!

also, how much more money in circulation now than in 1945?

After the Second World War, a system similar to the Gold Standard was established by the Bretton Woods Agreements. Under this system, many countries fixed their exchange rates relative to the US dollar. The US promised to fix the price of gold at $35 per ounce. Implicitly, then, all currencies pegged to the dollar also had a fixed value in terms of gold. Under the regime of the French President Charles de Gaulle up to 1970, France reduced its dollar reserves, trading them for gold from the U.S. government, thereby reducing US economic influence abroad. This, along with the fiscal strain of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society expenditures and the Vietnam War, led President Richard Nixon to eliminate the fixed gold price in 1971, causing the system to break down.

Not that 1971 is an interesting point on that chart or anything.

All the black line going up means is that there are no periods of deflation, so even low 1% or 2% annual increases all add up. If you look, from 1950, prices growth has been much more controlled than in the 150 years before that, despite the spikes in the 1970s.

It doesn't show inflation "spiralling out of control" in any way whatsoever. Soz.