Looking back at the U.S. CPI index from 1775 to today, what could it tell us about our current price levels and how that could be related to physical gold? Let’s find out.

When did prices start going up?

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As a reminder, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure that follows the price of a specific basket of goods and services. The CPI is used to assess the changes associated with the cost of living.

The chart below is a representation of the CPI in the U.S. from 1775 to 2010.

The chart is a representation of the CPI in the U.S. from 1775 to 2010.

Throughout history, we can see that the CPI has spiked during wartime.

Those bumps are easily understandable in a time of war: there is restrained production for a large number of goods, which means there is more demand chasing fewer goods, ultimately resulting in an increase in prices.

But the crucial piece of information here is how the CPI has been skyrocketing since 1971.

It's difficult to argue that such a dramatic increase in the cost of living, year after year for almost 50 years, could 

 be attributable to the forces of supply & demand.

In fact, the underlying currency devaluation may very well be the dominant factor in this increased cost of living.

Now, we know you know what happened in 1971, at least from reading previous SPOTLIGHTs 😉, 

so we'll leave it at that and reiterate that

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Good thing central banks can't print gold. 😉

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