An Unsustainable Growth Curve

I've been meaning to post this image for several days now and keep forgetting to do so. It's a graph that shows the amount of United States money in circulation, the so-called monetary base.

The image comes from the website of the Saint Louis Federal Reserve Bank. It's not photo-shopped; it's the real McCoy.

Notice the timeline. It goes from 1910 (99 years ago) through today. Incidentally, the Federal Reserve came into being in 1913.

The gray areas of the graph represent recessions (or in at least one famous case, a depression).

The monetary base stays fairly flat until roughly the 1960s (the Vietnam War) when the curve begins to rise. It accelerates in each of the following decades in a more or less mathematical model. There's a little blip rise immediately before the Y2K event - there was some concern that a computer shutdown might restrict access to cash - and another blip right after 9/11.

But then we get to the shocker. What happens to the monetary base in the last few months, as represented by the gray portion that reflects the current recession? A near vertical rise. A moon shot.

Has any nation, modern or otherwise, ever done such a thing to itself and survived?

Better question: Will we?