History doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes?
Looking at USD/gold prices, it’s hard not to make a comparison to the classic late-stage Weimar inflation chart. The scale is not the same, but the trajectory fits surprisingly well. The USD timeline also appears to be progressing somewhat slower by comparison and is currently “earlier” in the process. “Earlier” here no longer means pre-1919 however; it means pre-1923. Reserve-currency status does not prevent eventual exponential decay, it only delays the vertical phase.
To put this in context: over the last 52 weeks, the USD is down approximately 88% versus gold. That implies the dollar retained only ~12% of its gold value over one year. A sustained annual loss of that magnitude would place the dollar firmly in the late Weimar acceleration phase.
Roughly 8–9× inflation per year compares to Germany in late 1921, approaching 1922, but before the hyperinflationary blow-off.
Weimar is remembered for prices doubling every few days, but that occurred only during the final 9–12 months. What is usually forgotten is that the run-up took years.
Each year felt survivable. Each year normalized the next.
By 1921–1922, however, the process had become functionally irreversible.
