Since the Fall of the International Gold Standard in 1914, the Fiat Money "System" Has Wandered through 4 Successive Stages of Disorder: 1914-31, 1931-68, 1969-85, and Mid-1980s to Present (2018-?)

Since the fall of the full international gold standard in 1914, the fiat money "system" has wandered through four successive stages of disorder. In each of these, we can identify the eventual emergence of a "stabilization experiment." The first three all ended in dismal failures, sometimes catastrophic. Either the experiment was deeply flawed or halted prematurely or both. The present--the fourth--is headed in the same direction, driven by essential flaws in concept and implementation. We call this last the "global 2% inflation standard." It could not have been introduced at a worst time. The main uncertainty is whether it will come to an end in an asset price deflation shock, or a goods inflation shock, or both. Then there will be the fifth stage of disorder. Question: could the fifth stabilization experiment, if and when it emerges, be more successful than the previous four? That is running ahead of our story. Let's go back to the beginning.

--Brendan Brown, The Case Against 2 Per Cent Inflation: From Negative Interest Rates to a 21st Century Gold Standard (Cham, CH: Springer International Publishing, 2018), Kobo e-book.