From the Captain:
A couple quibbles:
As of 2015, the US dollar is at record highs versus other currencies, hardly a failure. So I guess you could say many currencies have failed except the reserve currencies.
The gold standard in encumbering, making it harder for the country to recover from recession & panics. Since the end of the gold standard , there have been fewer recessions and the recessions that have existed have been shorter, with prolonged expansion in-between them. In the past 25 years there have only been three recessions (1991,2001,2008), the first two being very shallow and brief.
Nominal prices are higher for many items, but you get much more utility. Personal Computers, hd-tvs, Netflix, iPhones, cancer drugs ….all didn’t exist 100 years ago.
But then you still must adjust for CPI. Although nominal prices are up a lot, movie tickets, for example, in real prices cost the same as they did in the 70’s, but you get much more utility in that the theater is more comfortable and the picture is better (whether or not the movie itself is better is subject to debate).
Other expenses have decreased relative to personal income, such as food & energy:
It’s pretty obvious based on the empirical data there has been no hyperinflation despite the ending of the gold standard.