What if the ugliest economic decade in modern American history wasn’t just history — but a warning label? In Episode 353, we go back to 1971, when Nixon closed the gold window, slapped tariffs on imports, froze wages and prices, leaned on the Fed for easy money, and helped light the fuse on the stagflationary mess that followed. Then came the oil shock, Arthur Burns, double-digit inflation, sixteen lost years for the Dow, and eventually Paul Volcker showing up with a monetary flamethrower. Fast-forward to today: energy shock, tariffs, political pressure on the Fed, sticky inflation, a fragile labor market, and stocks priced like gravity has been repealed. This isn’t a prediction that history repeats perfectly. It’s a question of whether we’re watching the same bad movie with a new cast — and whether the Fed learned anything from the first screening.
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🔗 Resources:
August 15, 1971 — Nixon’s New Economic Policy / “Nixon Shock” (Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum)
How Richard Nixon Pressured Arthur Burns: Evidence from the Nixon Tapes (American Economic Association)
Kevin Warsh — “In Our Time” | Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium (Federal Reserve Board)
Consumer Price Index — August 2026 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
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