Let’s start with this fact; fiat (paper) currencies die — often spectacularly. That is why precious metals may someday be needed for barter and trade. Anyone who thinks it is silly to worry about such a thing is putting blind faith in Federal Reserve Notes.

The U.S. dollar is having a great run, no question. It will soon be 50 years since Nixon closed the gold window, thereby converting the dollar to a purely fiat currency. Five decades is longer than most purely fiat currencies survive.

Humans carry a normalcy bias. That helps explain why so many assume the unbacked Federal Reserve Note, which has served so long as our currency, will continue to serve in the future.

If you test that assumption, it quickly gets hard to defend.

Point to the exponential growth in U.S. debt, the unrestrained government spending throughout both Republican and Democratic administrations, and the extraordinary monetary policies of the Fed (particularly in the past decade) and reasonable people should acknowledge that the reign of “king dollar” is unlikely to last forever.

Most people don’t know the first thing about the dark history of fiat currencies around the world. Governments use them to borrow and print without limits. Suffer no delusions — fiat currencies were invented for precisely that purpose. The gold in the treasury has never been sufficient for the wars, social programs, and graft which are the hallmarks of a growing government.

America is no exception. Nixon slammed the gold window shut because nations — France in particular — saw the U.S. spending beyond its means and devaluing the dollar. So our trading partners began swapping dollars for bullion. In order to stop the hemorrhaging of U.S. gold reserves, Nixon reneged on the commitment to redeem Federal Reserve Notes in gold.

Honest money in the form of gold, or currency redeemable in gold, imposes restraints that no expansionist government can abide — ours included.

The chart showing the growth of our national debt since Nixon broke the last remaining tie between the dollar and gold is hard to refute.

Whether or not the federal government can be trusted to make good on its commitments over time is a serious question.

It would be silly not to prepare for a collapse in confidence, and, by extension, a collapse in the dollar. And nobody should wait. Currency crises through history catch most people by surprise, then it is too late to prepare.

Check out the entire article here.