>Real wages have stagnated since nixon got us off the gold standard in 1970.
Depends on how you measure them. There's household income, individual income, hourly wages, yearly salaries, non income benefits etc. The idea that only the rich have gained since 1973 is probably wrong. By some wages have not grown very much, by others we have done better.
minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/where-has-all-the-income-gone
Regardless, there is as much causal link between the gold standard(really Bretton Woods) with wages as there is anything else. The USA started favoring free trade much more, governments were unions were less pro union at the time as well. Those aren't necessarily the cause of anything. This seems to be a cause-correlation fallacy.
>Savings rates AND economic growth rates were higher before the federal reserve.
Thats also not true. The image I found comes from something called Talmarkets and is based on BEA data. It goes back to 1900. I was unable to find anything of hand that showed savings rates from the 19th century. However, it seems somewhat implausible that savings rates were higher in the 19th century than the 20th given income levels and wealth. If you have information on this i would be interested in looking at it.
>economic growth
I looked at two data sates on GDP per capita over the long run. Measuringworth.com and the Angus Maddison world history set.
From 1800-1913 GDP per capita grew at 1.3% according to MW. The Maddison data revealed the same rate of growth. Growth was slightly lower going back to 1775.
From 1913 to 2018 growth was 1.9% based on the MW data and the Madison data at 1.7%.
This does not necessarily vindicate the Fed(conversely if growth was lower that wouldn't damn it either). the Fed cannot push growth beyond the production possibilities frontier. Growth is derived from technology, business practices, and public polices like eduction or science.
Attached: savings.jpg (380x261, 38K)
