Debt is the cause of all this, and it got exponentially worse after 1971:
In 1971, United States President Richard Nixon announced that the US dollar would not be directly convertible to Gold anymore. This measure effectively destroyed the Bretton Woods system by removing one of its key components, in what came to be known as the Nixon shock. Since then, the US dollar, and thus all national currencies, are free-floating currencies. Additionally, international, national and local money is now dominated by virtual credit rather than real bullion.