Furthermore, one can see the surges in bank credit accompanying these periods and tie them to specific policy moves by the authorities: The Treasury stimulated inflation in the early 1900s; the Fed deliberately inflated in the roaring 1920s to take the pressure off the British pound (which had been devalued during World War I); the Roosevelt administration took the reins off inflation by debasing the gold - content of the dollar in 1933; zealous money printing in the 1960s led to the inevitable
collapse of the Bretton Woods
system (and complete
fiat money was born); money printing continued apace with Alan Greenspan in the 1990s and, following the dot - com crash, into the 2000s.