A single ounce of gold surpassed $4,500 dollars this week. In 1971, under President Nixon, the U.S. “temporarily” suspended the gold standard. At the time, dollars were backed by gold, guaranteed by the U.S. government, and redeemable for gold at a fixed exchange rate of $35 dollars per ounce. This equates to over 9% annual growth for 55 years now. One could argue that this is the true rate of inflation. This would mean our 4.3% GDP print is actually negative 5% real growth. When the units we measure value in are constantly inflated, it becomes very hard to accurately measure anything of value.