That year is such a noticeable inflection point in so many data sets, that an intriguing website WTFHappenedIn1971.com has been created to drive the point home.

The website is a parade of data series visually showing how the world changed that year.

Be it income…

….political polarization…

… the divorce rate…

…and a kitchen sink's worth of other statistics — from the national debt to deficit spending, childhood obesity, the incarceration rate, energy use per capita — pretty much all aspects of life as we know it changed materially and permanently in the early 1970s.

This week's guest experts, Ben Prentice and Collin, founders of WTFHappenedIn1971.com, explain how virtually all of these changes are a direct or indirect result of the monetary system "breaking" that year with the Nixon Shock and the end of the Bretton Woods System.

On a personal note, interviewing Ben and Collin was an unexpected pleasure, as I found it encouraging to discover that members of the Millennial generation are engaging with the shortcomings of our modern debt-based fiat currency system with the same passion and critical thinking as we older cohorts. Perhaps the future might just turn out OK in their hands after all…