Since the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913, the dollar has shed more than 90 percent of its value. The loss of value has been especially pronounced since 1971, when Richard Nixon took the dollar off the last vestiges of the gold standard. In that year, the dollar became a pure fiat currency, grounded in nothing but the whims of politicians and technocrats. The consequences have been disastrous. One thousand 1971 dollars would buy only $185 worth of goods today. This represents a loss of some 80 percent in purchasing power. The dollar has already entered its terminal phase. The word "doom" is written across it for anyone with the eyes to see. Sad to say, there is no way to reverse its downward slide. With more than $13 trillion in public debt and some $100 trillion in unfunded mandates, our federal government has assumed far more obligations than it can ever make good on. Worse still, these figures are growing larger every year. To put it bluntly, our federal government is flat-out bankrupt. Currency disintegration is always the unavoidable result of government bankruptcy. The dollar -- which has been weakening for many decades -- will at some point go into a sudden death spin. The only question is when. It may happen six months from now or six years from now. The timeframe is impossible to predict, but we can now be certain that happen it will. No one -- not even the federal government -- can escape the numbers. And the numbers are hideous. One hundred ...